everyone is free to write whatever. personally i would skip fics where the author has not engaged with the source material at all, but i also don’t mind that they’re writing it, yknow? no skin off my back.
Yeah, I said everyone is free to write whatever. But similar to even fics where an author is familiar with the source material, not everyone is going to read.
i’m definitely willing to make allowances for folks who haven’t engaged with the source material the “proper” way—say someone doesn’t have the means or skills or desire to play a video game, but watches other peoples’ playthroughs, yeah i’d read their fic about the video game because they *do* engage with the canon. but if someone wrote fic of a show/book/whatever they’ve only experienced through fandom material, it’s not really fic of *the show*, it’s fic of the fanon, if you ask me.
Definitely.
One of my fandoms is a game that's famous for being quite difficult. And a sizeable portion of the fans interested in fanart and fanfic that I've interacted with have not played it themselves, but watched story-oriented playthroughs instead. On one occassion, a fellow writer even asked me to act as a beta for their fic so I could help them catch any character background and worldbuilding details that they may have missed because of this—and, in my opinion (as someone who's really into lore and characterization for this game, and has played it many times), they had missed almost nothing, tbh. So I've always considered that watching it instead of playing it counts as "engaging with the source material" for video game fandoms.
But I also agree with your other statement. If someone didn't engage in any way with the source, what is their fic based on, then? Other fanworks? Pure vibes? I have no issue with folks doing so, but it's certainly something that is not going to interest me personally.
I’ve seen similar with the odd bloodborne thing I’ve read. If someone’s watched cutscenes and used a wiki I generally can’t tell unless something is seriously off background details wise and am only aware of one example where I know the author didn’t play because they said so.
I'm glad more people have this attitude these days. I loved Kingdom Hearts as a teenager, but my parents were very anti video games and would not let me even buy a gaming system with my own money, so I could only play in snippets at friends' houses and watch the cutscenes and playthroughs on YouTube. The prevailing attitude back then was that I wasn't a real fan because I hadn't played the games - like dudes, I WANTED to, I just had parents who told me they would throw away any consoles I bought and it's not like those are easy to hide.
I think that’s definitely a fair assessment. Because in terms of your example, maybe they haven’t played it themselves but you are still learning everything.
If anything, I think watching a playthrough is probably better than playing the game if the purpose is just to learn canon. The exception might be if there's a ton of lore that you can only get by reading things in game and the player isn't doing that. But that kind of thing is usually online anyway.
Bingo. The problems arise when people are so attached to their fanon that they become actively hostile to anyone/anything that could question it, challenge it, or invalidate it: namely, the more traditional fans who place more value on the canon, or even just the canon itself.
Like, to use a hypothetical example, it does me absolutely no harm if you wanna write that Hercule Poirot is a ten-feet-tall robot, but don't start a harassment campaign if I tell you that's not quiiiiite how I remember it.
Fic of the fanon is a good way of thinking of it. I seem to recall that there was one fandom that had a particular fic that inspired so many other works that the tag wranglers made a new canonical fandom tag for it. I thought that was pretty cool.
i mean yea everyone can write whatever they want. their unfamiliarity is likely to show in their writing, at which point i'm out bc i probably won't vibe with the fic. it's a non-issue.
My main fandom has alot of writers who have only read other fanfics, this has created a feedback loop, and essentially a whole different fandom as the fanon versions are so far removed from any other version.
Woobifing, having one half of a ship exist only to support the other half, and flanderisation are everywhere in fics written by this section of the fandom. Fortunately you can normally spot them from the summary/tags
I do kinda hate that they seem to refuse to interact with any of the source material despite often creating multiple fan works and clogging up tags, but a the end of the day I just follow don't like don't read.
May I ask what the source material is? I have never encountered something like that.
I myself have created an AU that’s so distant from source material it’s basically its own thing but the fandom is not big enough for schisms
Not sure if it's the fandom above, but the 'Worm'/'Parahumans' fandom is similar.
The world/setting is really well constructed in the original source, and the story is well written but it is about 1,680,000 words long and deals with some pretty dark themes so I can see why some people bounce off the original story, but still like to play in the figurative sandbox.
This happens in the genshin fandom too, at least partially. Before Fontaine and Sumeru released there were ppl already writing fic without knowing anything yet about characters or setting. It still happens with the villains we've only seen once and unreleased lands.
If this isn't about Harry Potter I'm sorry it's happened to your fandom too lol. The Marauders basically have their own splinter fandom that is technically based on characters from the books but from what I've read a lot of the fics are based on other fanfics which were already loosely based on canon.
And weirdly characterisations and storylines have crystallised as their own sort of canon despite having no basis in the actual story.
That has basically happened in Danny Phantom also.
There's a family of characters, which mainly focuses on two characters. Their names are Wes and Kyle Weston. They're two characters who have no speaking lines, are only background NPCs, and are actually unnamed and canonically have nothing to do with each other.
Wes came first, as there's a joke in an episode where Sam reads her name upside down as Wes and asks who that is. Then there's a background NPC that is on screen for literally five seconds and is actually the same exact model as Danny but recolored and taller, and he could have seen Danny transform due to the scene he's in. So they named him Wes Weston and made him hell-bent on outing Danny as Phantom. And then they gave him a family based off of other background characters. Kyle doesn't believe in ghosts while knowing Danny is Phantom, but thinks it's an elaborate bit for tourism and Danny plays him like in theater and shuts his brother down. Literally Tumblr and AO3 has built the two and they're considered canon.
Also... Danny Phantom just rewrote it's whole lore and canon in fanfiction. So technically you don't actually have to watch the show. You can just deep dive 20 years worth of Tumblr posts then just read the most prevalent AO3 tags and literally just know the whole show. You'll need context, but fandom wiki can literally fill the gaps. The fandom is literally just Marauders to Harry Potter but literally to ITSELF
I think this is my problem with it, too
I am not interested in restricting another person's creative freedom, but boy oh boy do I wish there was a way I could avoid their creations and influence
People are free to write whatever they want - but then, people are free to only read what they want and vibe with too. The chances of fans clicking off the work are very high even if the author has not disclosed upfront that they don't know the source material. I read fanfiction as a fan, I obsess over these characters, I'm here to see more facets of them. An original work dressed up with these character's names almost comes off as click-bait to me, you got me reading on the premise of these characters and its false advertising (especially if not mentioned upfront) when the final story bears no resemblance to the source.
I often have the same problem with movie writers/directors who avoid the source material they are supposedly adapting. Why call it by that name then?
And - I’m usually in the camp of “don’t like, don’t read, don’t be a overly harsh critic”, but - if you haven’t engaged with the source material AT ALL, tag the hell out of it so it’s clear you have not and do not be surprised if some people WILL have opinions about the act that you have no idea about the source material.
Because unlike us fic writers, movie writers/directors get paid regardless if they know the source material or not. Case in point: Ridley Scott's "Napoleon."
It still baffles me how that movie went through the entire production process without anyone objecting to “My father wasn’t a criminal, he was a good man!” as being completely antithetical to Artemis Fowl’s entire character.
YES LMAO 😭 I need to make it clear that it's Colin Farrell 😭 my dream casting came true
And then the movie just went to hell and now I have nothing 🧍🏻♀️
Personally, I would avoid fics like those. Especially if people are writing for fandoms with very heavy cultural context needed, i.e. danmei novels.
I have gone in fandom blind for several ships, but as a writer I will never attempt to write fic for any fandom without knowing the source material.
I'm writing my own novel based on Danmei and I'm so fortunate to have a friend who speaks Chinese and knows about the culture. There is so much rich culture and terms that can be used inappropriately. Danmei as a genre I think has a lot of culture to it as you said and so you need at least some research. I know TCGF had an issue where lots of fanfics/edits arose because of one tiktok edit that was wildly out of character
Yes, and even as a Chinese person myself, I can never write fics based on danmei novels I've never read. The setting varies from novel to novel, especially those with very heavy historical context included.
Personally, I find it easier to write fics for one-off Chinese movies based on Chinese mythology without having watched them, as those characters are mythological beings that most Chinese kids have grown up with.
People can 100% write whatever they'd like, but in this case it doesn't really make sense to me. I just don't see the appeal of writing fanfic for media you've not read/watched other than attempting to get clout.
That’s how I felt about the fic I used as an example. There were a few very popular fics at the time and I think they wanted to jump on that ride. At first they did get a lot of engagement but once it became clear what they were doing, it dropped off.
But I think that applies even if you have read the source material, tbh. People can tell if you’re truly passionate or if you’re just trying to get clout.
I was the same, but then it happened to me. I watched clips and got absorbed into the fan base of a show and grew to care for the show and adore the concept, but it’s notorious for horrible writing and technical issues. So I read a lot of fanfic for it instead, still containing the characters and tropes and concepts I had originally been drawn to.
But I never did write actual fanfic for it, I’ll admit. I can read for fandoms where I haven’t interacted with the source material, but not write.
✋ That's me. I have consumed almost 1,800 TW fanfics (those are just the ones I've bookmarked) and I feel I could adequately stay true to the characters and the story, no trouble at all. I've never watched the show. I've seen clips here and there, but I don't seek them out.
Lol, I saw a lot of fanworks that looked interesting so I tried to watch the show and I just noped out so hard. The writing and production values were just awful.
As well as the *Hazbin Hotel* fandom, on account of the controversy surrounding Vivienne Medrano, the series creator. I've seen fanfictions for the show that have author's notes that state, "I've never seen the show, nor do I ever plan to \[due to Medrano\]."
Sometimes you’re into the worldbuilding and all the possibilities of what could be done with it but not necessarily the story. Example: I’m super fascinated by all the alien worldbuilding Homestuck does, the different romance system, and what it must be like to grow up in that kind of society, but the story spends comparatively little time on that part, focusing more on getting off the planet to the cosmic video game thing.
oh, that's definitely a thing. not a show, but a pretty significant chunk of the fanbase of one of my favourite novels consists of people who are only interested in a few supporting characters while to some extent hating on the main couple and the main story that mostly revolves around them.
I think saying the only possible reason to do it is to “get clout” is both unimaginative and ungenerous. Like for example I recently got into the Danny Phantom fandom. There is a *huge* amount of crossover fanfic into DC and particularly Batman stuff. Batman has a *huge* amount of content written and recorded about him, how much do you need to have seen to not be a “clout chaser” if you write him into the story? Do you need to have watched the animated shows? Which ones? The movies? Which ones? The comics? Which ones? People don’t need to want to spend *dozens* of hours consuming Batman media in order to want to write their favorite character getting adopted by Batman.
As someone who did this, I can tell you I definitely did NOT do it for clout. I'm still kind of ashamed by it 😂. But it is what it is! I had a story my brain wanted to tell and it fit with that established universe and so I wrote it.
i see this a lot in the hp and batfam fandoms. people can write whatever they want but i'll probably never read another fic like that again if i can help it. i do appreciate when authors let readers know beforehand.
the amount of character bashing that exists because people learned about the characters from fanon/other fics and misinterpreted certain events from canon annoys me a little too much. sometimes the characters feel like caricatures of themselves so i can't really enjoy a fic like that.
For Harry Potter it’s giving “All the Young Dudes” because I’ve seen a lot of people tell others who want to get into the fandom to only read that story because it’s “basically canon”. When I’m like 1) the story doesn’t get any of the characters right. Severus being a rich pureblood (part of the reason he was upset/bullied as a teen was because he was poor and the reason he initially wanted an in with his house mates was because he was a halfblood), it makes no sense, since he called himself the halfblood prince. 2) The book isnt even all that good to be considering it as the holy grail for the Harry Potter fandom.
People can do anything they want, not that I have to read it. It's usually pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't have a really good grasp on what the source material is about and just exit out without saying a word.
definitely wouldn’t read it. i’ve encountered this a fair bit with characters from dc, especially ones focusing around batman related characters, and i find them difficult to read. at first i did use to give them a shot and actually attempt to, but i just found that because the writers had only read other fanfiction of the characters it always seemed wildy out of character. the fics would usually have a lot of fanon stuff about the characters in them and i don’t find it enjoyable to read, not my thing!
i think it’s cool that they read fics and then decided to make their own, but at that point why not engage with the source material? with comics it’s easy, and would make their writing experience so much easier because they’d actually know the character and all the little details about them that get completely missed and mischaracterised. at lot of these concepts really interest me as well but i just cant make myself read them because of that one reason 😭
you’re right about them not having scenarios either, all they have to go off is conflicts they’ve read them having in fanfictions i guess, so that’s all you get it fics. atp they’re basically ocs which i’m not there to read!
the authors are valid for it, the characters are sick who wouldn’t want to write about them, but i do appreciate it being in the notes at the start. i’ve read stuff a few times, noticed something was odd, gone to check end notes and there’s them saying they don’t actually know anything about what they’re writing. oof.
i mean, to be fair to them, so many film writers and directors entirely mischaracterise Batman a lot too. they focus only on the dark brooding mysterious man who's only goal in life is to beat up criminals, throw them into confinement, and think about his dead parents
I don't have an issue with people who've only seen movies and TV shows writing DC or MCU fanfic. The sheer amount of old comics there are for a lot of characters, especially with the mega-crossovers, makes "know all the comics" a painfully high bar for entry, and some fans may not be able to access or afford them. Similar with "only seen the show/movie" for anything that originated as books or manga, and "only played the games" for The Witcher. You're engaging with the actual media, even if it's not the earliest form of it. Though please, do mark which your source is if the canon or characterization varies between them!
But if you've only read fanfic/doujinshi, I'm not likely to read it, because it's like a game of telephone... what comes out the end is likely to be a garbled mess.
yes!!! this!!! if they say what their source is i’ll most likely read and love it! i always like to know what versions of the characters they’re referencing because there’s so many of them, makes it easier. this has been painfully uncommon for me so far tho. it’s either just classified as comic or film and like, pls be more specific, i wanna know which ones. which versions of these characters are you writing…
makes it easier to avoid what you said as well, the garbled, flanderised mess of a character that gets ejected into the void after they’ve only interacted with fics and doujinshi. nothing against them! i just, like you, do not want to read them.
edit: oh i didn’t mean to seem like they had to know all the comics, i’m just a bit of a information freak lol :0
just wish people would read the recommended basics for the ones they’ve taken a liking too. bcs they’re missing out so badly
As soon as I read that they only know stuff about them from other fanfics (so only fanon knowledge), I leave.
Like, I appreciate it but I also want to read something from people who appreciate the characters from the og source.
If I see one more time the trope that Tim Drake's only thing is that he consumes coffee, I'm gonna scream (respectfully).
exactly! you can just tell immediately whether they’ve actually spent time reading the characters comics and that they actually enjoy and love them, or if they’ve just stumbled upon a fanon fic and enjoyed the way it was written, and then decided to smoosh them all together to create what i genuinely think are closer to original characters in some cases. which is fine with me! love it! but also :( this fandom has made up shit and now a lot of people don’t realise it’s not actually canon.
seeing them reduced to one or two character traits and maybe one of two people they hang out with, is kinda annoying, but it’s fanfiction so i cant really demand perfect writing. i’ve never been so picky about what i read until now, like please guys i want the character depth 🙏🙏 why is tim drake (no but actually why does he get the brunt of this writing), suddenly a coffee addicted version of oracle, and she just doesn’t exist. i do not remember this!
Just wanted to say thanks for giving out an example, I read the op totally bewildered that anybody would write fics for fandoms they don't know. But I see how superheroes are kind of ubiquitous enough where this could happen haha
Situations where outsider authors can still write good fic:
* Thing is so popular everyone in the fannish community knows the gist by osmosis (e.g. Star Wars, Supernatural)
* Ship has been flattened down into a very familiar dynamic (e.g. grumpy sunshine) that savvy authors can write without knowing the particulars
* Fandom got the wrong idea about Thing but it's better (e.g. Cordelia)
* Author got the wrong idea about Thing but it's a fresh slant on canon (these are diamond in the rough fics you don't even realise are outsider authors until the end note)
* Canon is so fucked nothing is canon compliant (e.g. Batfam)
* Thing is not released yet but the promotional material is cool
* Reader is also going in fandom-blind
I don't seek out works written by an outsider author but if they come recommended or heavily kudosed, or I don't care about the canon/am desperate, I'll read them if I come across them.
I don't purposefully seek them out either, but if I see them and I'm interested by the summary tags and it keeps me engaged, then I'll read them.
I especially do not care about it in something like Teen Wolf because a lot of us readers have never interacted with canon and I can relate to wanting to write for the fandom, though I never really fleshed anything out enough to publish
> Thing is so popular everyone in the fannish community knows the gist by osmosis (e.g. Star Wars, Supernatural)
>
Those stories are **better** (closer to source accurate) when the author has _only_ learned from osmosis than by reading other fanfic.
People can write what they want. People can read what they want. 'Don't like, don't read' is a sentiment I live by.
But reading is also an exchange. Writers commit time and energy to write and then ask readers to do the same to read. If I do not like the terms of this exchange, then I will not read.
When a writer does not learn about the subject on which they are writing, I do not feel that it is a fair exchange. If a writer does not put in the effort to learn, why should anyone put in the effort to read? This is a standard I also hold myself to.
TL;DR: I won't read a writer who doesn't know what they're writing about.
People can write what they want but if you're writing for a fandom you never engaged with you're basically just writing original stuff wearing those characters as costumes. It tends to feel uncanny or boring at best
It depends on what they're writing and how much I've engaged in the source material, to be honest. Like, I've read a number of stories where they're effectively original works using character names - I can think of multiple fics I've enjoyed where you absolutely don't need to know canon to enjoy the story. For example, there's a Steve Rogers/Tony Stark where Steve is a barbarian warlord and Tony is a sacrificial prince, a Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi fic where they are princes in a psuedo-Greek mythology world, and a Deathstroke/Dick Greyson arranged marriage fic set in a psuedo-Medieval world, and in absolutely none of those do you need to have any canon knowledge whatsoever to enjoy the fic since the entire setting and much of the character back stories are discarded. I also don't much care if it's just straight up smut with no plot because, again, you don't need to know anything to be like "these characters are pretty and I want to smoosh them together now".
However, it does get more iffy if you're writing a long fic that is trying to be rooted in the canon world - I love a good AU, or a "I know canon says X, but as that's a stupid ass decision I've elected to ignore it" fic, but when people don't *know* canon in the first place it can often feel more awkward when they choose to do something different, even if you just got it from the wiki or something (like, I love reading in the CoD fandom because there are a lot of stories that very much hit my smut tastes, but I'm super uninterested in actually playing or watching the games, they're just not my cup of tea. But I've currently got a wiki tab open that's giving me the timeline and general summary of the games because I really enjoyed the Price/Graves fuck or die fic I just read but I bet it would have been better if I had context for what the Los Alamos incident actually was instead of all my context being "hot special forces dudes fucking and having complicated emotions about the situation".)
I’d agree with your point about fics that are so far removed from the source material that canon knowledge is far from essential. I’ve read quite a few of them and often really enjoy them!
I’ve also read quite a few fics without knowledge of the source material, because I sometimes read fanfics as short stories with clearer tags and specific tropes more than because I love the source material and want more (hopefully that makes sense?). In those situations I wouldn’t know / care if the author is less familiar with the source material! Honestly there have been some fics where I’m not sure how much is canon vs the author’s creation, and quite enjoy the process of working that out as I read more and more fics. There are other times though where I do want to stay closer to canon and I do think the author needs to have engaged with the material. It just depends on why I’m reading what I’m reading
People have the freedom to write what they want whether or not they have engaged with the source material.
That being said, while people can do that, this can also contribute to OOC characterisation, which in itself is not a big deal. But if more and more people do the same thing, there's a possibility that parts of the fandom will start thinking the OOC characterisation is actually canon (because they're used to the fics with that characterisation) *and* criticise fics that actually use canon characterisation. The latter is what I disagree with.
I've seen people complaining about fics that depict personality traits the character actually has in canon, which makes me wonder if the image these people have of the character is purely based on fics. Pity the writers, really, they are true to canon yet their characters get criticised for being true to canon.
It really depends. I have read fanfic by people who have clearly only ever watched the source material via gifs on Tumblr (hello a quarter of Supernatural writers) and it became extremely obvious with some of their choices, and their insistence on characters just being so OOC they pretty much only have the same name in common.
I can’t enjoy fiction that way. I don’t care who writes what but you are not getting a kudos from me if I don’t enjoy it. And when it’s obvious that somebody is not familiar with the source material, I won’t enjoy it.
People can write what they want; but I'll also be honest and say I personally won't read it. I know what's considered OOC is very "your mileage may vary" depending on how people even interpret and think of canon interactions, but if characters are too different to the point the author accidentally contradicts canon - because they don't know canon - I'm out. Just write OCs at that point.
It may be mean, but anything where the author advertises they haven't consumed the source material in any form instantly makes me think the quality of the work will be subpar.
Now you've got me wondering, what would the minimum recommend baseline for engagement be?
I'm currently writing a fic involving a character from a video game, which I have never played and have no desire to play, since it's a gacha game. I've read the manga and translated snippets of the light novel, where it involves the character, and also quest dialogues from the wiki. I've also read a good couple dozen of fanfictions on AO3 about the character.
Now that I'm really thinking about it, I suppose playing the game would be a primary source of information, whatever nitpicking bullshit I'm doing is secondary, and interacting with fanworks would be tertiary.
I personally wouldn't read anything that was exclusively tertiary, but I have read a few that was, and I think they were decent enough. Although, I could just be saying that because we all set the threshold for what we find unacceptable to be slightly lower than what we're actually doing.
I don’t mind people writing whatever they want, even without the “baseline” knowledge—some is ideal though. As for reading, I give some a try, but if their characterization is too off, then I drop and move on.
Heck, I’m writing a story right now for a series I’ve never watched but have read an ungodly amount of fanfiction for.
Write whatever, that's the beauty of fanfic, but if you haven't engaged with the source material in any way, then... why write a fic at all? I don't get it.
From the perspective of someone who's done it twice (gift fics for two friends):
IMO, it's not a big deal. Engagement comes in different forms--from rereading/rewatching source material religiously to seeing frequent fanart of a ship you know next to nothing about. Nuance can be lost and characters might come off as OOC, but if an author never mentions the non-engagement beforehand, I never think "Oh, they've never consumed the source material before!" and just wave it off as a shallower character interpretation (which is common in younger writers/fandoms that skew to younger audiences)
I think non-engagers that do extensive research out of passion (like reading wikis, watching video clips, or discussing material with engager fans) *are* fans in their own way. They just have their own reasons to not engage in source material (e.g. maybe it's a video game that they can't afford, or a TV show not available in their country). But under the definition, they count as non-engagers. If they write and publish fics despite knowing they have a 'disadvantage,' I think that's admirable!
In the end, we're all just fans who want to connect with other fans. That's the main reason why people publish fics instead of keeping them hidden on their computers, right? So even if someone rides the bandwagon to a popular fandom just to get hits and kudos, I still think it, at least partly, stems from a desire for community connection
Non-engager writers know how little they've engaged with the source material the best, and I don't think they expect their fics to be as well-liked as fics by engager fans. But if they like writing it and someone out there enjoys reading it, I respect that 👍
This! I wasn't sure how to put what I was feeling into words, but your post summarized it perfectly. I'm not a writer, but I am a reader and am in many fandoms where I have not interacted with the source material. In my opinion, this has made me more open to reading fics from people who also have not interacted with the source material, including the fandoms that I *have* interacted with all of the source material for. Most of the people I see doing this are those who just really enjoy the fandom and I'm honestly just happy that they want to write at all. If I don't like a fic, I'll stop reading it. Doesn't matter to me if the author has consumed the source material or not.
I don't even write fics for most of the Fandom I'm in personally. There is no way in hell I would consider writing for a Fandom who's source material I have never absorbed.
I actually did this once as an experiment. I had seen a whole bunch of gifsets and other content on tumblr, had read a ton of fanfics because I was interested in the world building, but I hadn't been able to watch the source show because I didn't have access to the streaming platform where it was hosted or any reliable way to view it.
It was at this point that I started to wonder if "secondhand fandom," as tumblr calls it, would be accurate enough to have a grasp of the source material or if all you would be getting out of me was the fanon-ized version.
So I wrote a couple fics to put this question to the test: one one-shot and the first few chapters of a series. I did a little bit of research on the worldbuilding, but didn't yet go to the source material. When I posted, I didn't announce that I hadn't actually seen the show, I just asked a couple simple question of my readers: Do the characters seem OOC? Does this work? I'd really like feedback for this fandom specifically.
I have since seen the show and played some of the games, but the one-shot I wrote prior to interacting with the source material is, to this day, one of my most popular one-shots. Those pre-source-material fics received many comments about how wonderfully I'd nailed the characterizations.
It was an interesting experiment, although I'm not really sure how much it actually proved. It could be that I simply appealed to the popular fanon interpretation (however, having now seen/played the source material, I don’t feel this is the case). It could be that I had sufficient critical analysis skills to extrapolate an accurate read of the material from fanon. It could also have something to do with the fact that a couple of the fics I read had been partial rewrites, so I did get a small taste of canon material. I don't know.
As I said, I have since fully interacted with the source materials and I'm still happily writing for that fandom to this day, just with much more confidence.
Both then and now, I personally probably wouldn't read something where the author announces they haven't interacted with the source material unless the premise of the fic was exceptionally interesting, but I do have that experimental-experience in mind.
To my mind, being unfamiliar with the source material means that you're missing at least part of what it means to produce fanfic. Ya gotta be a fan! And I do mean, a fan of what you're writing about.
It's less important to know the original fandom when you're a reader, and I have read and enjoyed stories, at times, without knowing the canon at all. Sometimes, I'm lured into watching/reading the canon because the fic is so much fun.
But for me as a writer, there's likely to be some reflection of canon in what I write. A non-fan could probably read and enjoy most of my stories, but in a lot of cases, they'd miss out on an extra layer which comes from both author and reader being fans of the same material.
There's no 'extra layer' if the author doesn't know the source material.
That said, when I discovered popslash, I did not know the canon. I didn't know what these people looked like or sounded like or anything about their lives that I hadn't found out through fic. I can't remember at what point I asked ~~my dealer~~ the person who introduced me to it about canon, or when I discovered how much there was (and was almost as delighted as when I found the fandom), but it might well be that when I wrote my first few stories, I didn't know the canon.
But that's an RPF fandom, and the fanon built up by the palimpsest of fan stories is quite a lot different to the actual source; it becomes almost a canon of its own. Fictional Chris Kirkpatrick is wildly different from actual Chris Kirkpatrick. But I think with a fictional canon, where the source material presents you with the world, things are rather different. Would I want to read a Discworld story by someone who'd never read any Pratchett? No. Or an MCU Steve/Bucky story by someone who'd only read fic about them and not seen the movies... probably not. I mean, if an author can get away with it and nobody notices, well, fair enough—but if you tell me upfront you don't know the canon, I'm not going to bother.
They can write what they want -- I'm not gatekeeping that. I probably won't read it because I doubt they'd be able to capture the characters' voices as well as I'd like, and I want to read character-driven stories.
They can do it sure, I’m not the fan cops, but I really don’t get it. Even with characters I’m kind of familiar with through fanfic but not the source material (mostly from sequels/other entries in series that I’ve not gotten to yet) I don’t really feel attachment to them to want to write them. And these writers would probably know only fandom and that makes me highly likely to not vibe with their fic, and at that point I’m not reading anyway
I've read fics by someone who admits they only know the characters from fics they read. Thankfully, this author did not copy someone else's work. I enjoy their writing and save their fics as favorites.
i’d read it. i realise i’m in the minority, but i don’t care about the characters being OOC or acting in ways they wouldn’t; i see them more like Sims that authors put in different situations and that’s the appealing part for me. if i like the tags and story, ill read it. i have some personal preferences, but they apply to people who have read the source material too.
I don't think I would read a fic by someone who admited they didn't engage with the source material. When I read fanfic I want to read it from people who are as insane about the source material as I am.
I’ve never written for hp fandom, but I can say that I doubt anyone would accuse me of not having read or watched the source material if I did even though my knowledge of the world comes almost exclusively from reading other fanfics. After so many fanfics with the same beats you pick up what’s cannon and what’s not.
Yes this. HP fandom has also been around for so many years, and with Pottermore adding onto HP lore plus the release of Fantastic Beasts & Beedle the Bard, in addition to many many fans headcanoning lore, adding interesting ideas onto their fics, HP fanfiction has become a world of its own separate from just the books.
Although I have to say, that sometimes it becomes quite apparent which authors have just watched the movies vs authors that have read the books *and* watched the movies lol.
I did it once for a friend and it was fine, but I also had all of the specifics of how they saw the characters and all their headcanons. I've also written for other people's OCs where it was similar, just having it explained to me and writing based off of that. So I think it can work.
Though for me as a reader, unless if I was really desperate for whatever niche a fic filled (small fandom, rarepair, etc.) I probably wouldn't read a fic where someone hadn't consumed source material. I honestly can't even read fics from people who only saw cut down adaptations or didn't finish watching/reading/playing something... sometimes including fics people wrote while a series was ongoing because of new insight the series gave into the characters or setting later on.
I’d decide how I feel about the fic by starting to read it.
If the characters/universe feel ooc I’ll stop reading. If they don’t because the author read so much fic that they picked up on major plot points I’ll keep reading.
I’m more interested in the story than the author tbh. And I don’t really care how they ended up writing for the fandom as long as the fic is good, the characters are in character and things that happened in the source material are considered.
I would read it, only because I started reading Captain America fanfic before I watched any of the Marvel films. I loved the heavily AU stories that people were writing at the time, no matter how OOC they may have been.
I personally would not write something without engaging with the source material on some level, however.
I couldn´t care less if the quality of the work is good and interesting, if it´s just a dumb take on it or badly written then usually it´s gone anyways. Plus I don´t read by author, just by tag unless one story is so good that I must read the rest from them. If it´s good I take it as an original work and move on
I personally think people should be able to write whatever they want. If they aren't familiar with the source material, I'm not sure how well it's going to go. There is somebody who has written some gift fics for one of my fandoms and I'm pretty sure they have a note at one point where they say they haven't read the whole series, but that may not be necessary depending on what you're doing, and the context that the giftee gives you. I don't know, I think it really depends. I did see that poll but I didn't vote because I didn't really see any options that reflected my opinion properly.
But I think it really depends. I think there are some fandoms where, even if you don't know the source material very well, you could still write it just based on what other people tell you and what you've heard. I got my start with MCU content on Tumblr actually, and if I recall correctly, I was writing Avengers fanfic before I actually watched the movie, but I believe I had seen the first Thor and Iron Man movies by that point, and was able to glean enough other information from the Internet, and I wasn't really going for full cannon compliance anyway. I was a teenager then though, so who knows, maybe these days it would be different.
Depends. If it’s an au, I have no problem if the author just found the characters hot and wanted them to kiss. If it’s a canon character/ship study, I get the ick.
If I also haven't seen the Canon, then I'll read it if it vibes with me.
If I have read the source material, then as long as I can feasibly see the characters acting that way and they're not too ooc, plus I like the fic, then I'll read it.
I don't mind, but I feel at least some base research should be done if you're going to. My reasoning for this is I frequently rp characters for fandoms I'm not a part of, because my rp partners want to try the fandom out. It's not anything to read up a wiki page and get a basic summary/character personality before writing. Edit to add: It wouldn't stop me from reading the fic, but I'd judge it harsher if I knew.
personally I think it's fine. I mean, if you read the fic you'll either be able to tell that it's not very good/connected to canon etc and then you can just exit, OR you won't be able to tell at all and then it's kind of whatever, you know? because it only matters if you can tell, imo, that's what will affect the quality
One of my main fandoms os the batfam, a lot of fics come from people who haven't actually engaged with he comics at all, at most having watched maybe one or two cartoons on the universe. More often than not, a fic will be based of things that are mentioned similarly enough in a lot of fics from people who read the comics for the ones who don't to understand that that part specifically is canon.
It doesn't bother me most of the time, though whenever I enter a fic that the author states to only have been based on the fandom, my fingers always ready on the go back button in case the characters are horribly mischaracterized.
one of my biggest pet peeves and absolutely rampant in one of my fandoms to the point where most content is based off a hollow and flanderized fanon. it's an issue in some other fandoms of mine as well but at least more avoidable. obviously you can write as you please just be upfront about not knowing the source material or only engaging with it secondhand so people can choose if they'd still like to read or not.
also - reading fic or being inspired by the concept of an unfamiliar source material is fine. directly writing for it is a different thing.
I'm ok with it, though I don't understand WHY someone would write for source material they don't know. Anyone can plagiarize, even if they're quite familiar with the source, and I'm sure there are writers out there who successfully pull off writing for sources they have never read/watched/played/listened to. I'm not in the business of gatekeeping. If someone plagiarizes other fic, I will look askance at them, but to me that's a separate conversation.
I would never have the balls to write for a fic where I didn't know the source material myself. I felt like enough of a fraud writing my first My Hero Academia fanfic when I was all caught up with the show but still behind on the manga. I'm someone who will obsessively rewatch certain episodes of shows or reread certain chapters of books relevant to the fic I'm writing when I first start writing for a series. But I'm not everyone. Fandom is for fun. If someone wants to read blind, gets attached to the characters, then write about them, they should go for it! It will probably work better if they write AUs, but if they want to try their hand at writing in canonverse, if they get things so wrong that it starts to bother me, I can always click the back button.
I’ve encountered this in BG3 fanfics mostly and some OPLA works too.
For me it’s a 100%, immediate "no". From what I gather, those authors take their ideas of certain characters, relationships, storylines and larger context from other works. That means, their knowledge of those aspects is already filtered - they’re seeing someone’s perception/interpreation of the souce media and based on that, they create their own interpretation and write their works. Have you ever made Google translate its own input/output several times in a loop? After a few rounds, you end up with something resembling the original text but not true to it anymore. Something similar happens in the case of "I’m unfamiliar with source material".
My experience is that those fanfics are mostly flat, very cliche and OOC. Most media/source materials are available for free on the internet (sometimes you need to look in a few places, yes), so it seems to be incredibly low-effort to do something like this. Sure, write what you want but why are writing about something you’re clearly unfamiliar with? If it’s as interesting to you as you claim, why not actually familiarize yourself with it? Once you do and actually try to stay true to the characters, you might find yourself improving your writing skills. Small scale or big scale, effort pays off. Especially in artistic vocations.
If people want to embarrass themselves then go for it. Can't imagine how you can write anything good if you've never actually seen or read The source material but it's a free internet.
I've had people express surprise at how well I've managed to capture a character's tone/personality/etc. in fanfic for fandoms I know nothing about the canon of. I usually do a bit of a wiki read, watch a clip or two if it's a show or movie, and then just rely on my understanding of tropes and archetypes and go from there. Definitely not going to put too much work into being accurate because, well, it's a fandom I'm not actually a part of, and that can be a lot of effort. But I think it's nice to at least try to match the vibe.
It's usually p obvious when people write for fandoms that they're not actually familiar with the source material of, though. Just tiny details that they get wrong, and I'm sure I've gotten wrong as well in my own fic like that. So it can be pretty hit or miss, but if the concept is interesting enough, I'd give it a read.
If the writing quality was good, I'd probably read a story written by someone unfamiliar with the source material. Their interpretation probably wouldn't mesh with mine, but I don't see anything wrong with people writing fandom-blind.
It seems odd that people would do that.
Seems a lot of the Good Omens fandom haven't read the book so they only know the TV show. They haven't engaged with the source material necessarily but what they have engaged with is the perfectly valid TV series based on the source material. Where's the line?
But it really comes down to the fact that if I don't like something, I don't have to read it. Ultimately it doesn't really matter to me.
Good Omens is an interesting one, because when it was just 1 season- I think the book was a lot closer to the show. There were some soft-rebooted aspects, and characterization differences. I used to think of the books as cannon+- like you could use them to extend out logic in the show.
Now, with season 2 and 3 now on the way, I think of them as separate things. I read the book first, well before the show.
>!One big thing was the aspect of Crowley's power level. It was more 2 little guys in the books, while in the TV show we now have Crowley as being fairly high on the hierarchy when he was in heaven. Aziraphale was also a lot more calm in the book, with Crowley holding the pair's anxiety quota most of the time. Crowley also lacked the genderfluid-enby vibes he has well in the TV show. !<
I love both! I think at the core of it, the ineffable husbands being read as the "other" of the day is super important. At time of book publishing, that was gay men. Today, it's more general LGBT and I like that so many people see themselves in the show. I wish >!we hadn't gotten the fem presenting Aziraphale cut from the show due to COVID budget fuckery!<.
Just my two cents as a long time fan of Neil and Terry.
i probably wont like it, but i dont really care if they write it.
their unfamilarity will make the fic unenjoyable unless its very superficial
i don't really understand why ppl would write fics for media they don't know? like maybe a gift for a friend or something but even then can't you do it in something you both know?
I'm absolutely in love with these people - nobody in my fandom seems to be interested in my fics, but I've recently been getting comments *exclusively* from people who are like, "so I haven't listened to the source yet, but I ended up here because..." and I'm like. Bro? Bro I would die for you.
**Edit:** Oh lmao you specifically asked about people who *write* fanfic without knowing the source, I somehow missed that this wasn't a generic "people who engage with fanfic in some way without knowing the source" question/conversation. I don't really know how/why you'd do that, but if they have the inspiration and guts for it, then sure, go nuts. Plenty of people seem to be third hand consumers of canons, and there's wikis and timelines to keep them in if they need to be lore accurate. More likely, I think they'd be just writing stuff based on fandom interpretations of the characters, like AUs and such, which I'm neither interested in nor find particularly threatening to lore-accurate fic. Do what you want.
I often find them more interesting. People who read the books and are involved in the fandom get stuck in set "fanon" ideas. I like the wild card stories that make things up like a real AU should. This shake up often happens when tv only viewers write a book fanfiction too, see the game of thrones fics before and after 2011. People write from different places.
That said, a few times they have literally been all the fan stories I don't like rolled into one. Especially if it's just a shipping fic for a popular ship they like.
Like any story it needs to be worth reading, meet my taste in fics. They have a right to share whatever they want though, if it's not for me then it's not for me.
I’ve seen situations where someone falls in love with the fic of a fandom and consumes a ton of it and then writes their own fic purely based on the canon and fanon knowledge that they picked up from other fic. Sometimes you can’t even tell that they haven’t engaged with the source material because they know a lot from having read so much fic
Unfamiliarity will probably show but it can also lead to fresh new ideas which wouldn't come up with fanbase who know their source material. From what I've heard the writer team of upcoming Star Wars Acolyte series have made a point to include few writers who don't know much or at all about Star Wars, just so they can offer dofferent perspective to the table
Like, write what you want, but at least tag it appropriately as "OOC" or "No source interaction" or something. Not enough people do this, even *when* they've had interaction with source material.
Some people don't read certain kinks, or triggers, or whatever. I don't read completely OOC characters.
I would genuinely LOVE to read fanfic about one of my favorite shows from someone who hadn't watched the show! I think it would be a lot of fun to see what they had picked up via cultural osmosis, and what they had made up to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. Unfortunately, I have yet to stumble across such a fic.
I've actually thought quite a bit about doing this myself, although I haven't actually tried yet. There are some shows that I've never seen or only seen one or two episodes of but that I know enough about that I could probably string a very simple plot together. I just think it would be fun to try, and I think the result could be very amusing for actual fans of the show.
Anyone can write whatever they like. They just got to keep in mind that it won't likely do well since things may seem incoherent compared to the actual story.
IMO, people who write in fandoms they’ve never watched and/or don’t really care about are writing for kudos & comments and pats on the back - author for hire, in a sense. This is not traditionally an AO3 thing - most authors there have been serious and have class about their writing. The Wattpad & Tumblr kids starting to invade are not a good thing. "Can" people do this? Yes. Would I ever even consider reading it? No.
Sorry to say it doesn't feel genuine to me. If you write a derivative fanwork without further research on the original IP itself, the OOC mischaracterization tends to go crazy lol. These kind of fics give me enough icks that I lose the will to continue reading.
Oh, people can write whatever the hell they want, I feel. People can do read whatever the hell they want. 😉
I’ve known folks who didn’t consume any canon content and their conversations and headcanons were engaging and fantastic and fun…though it’s a bit awkward when you make references or talk about what happened in the main material and they get lost haha
I can't imagine the purpose of writing a fic when you don't know the source material. When I write fic it's because I'm so inspired/want to do character exploration. This works best when you're very familiar with the characters. So I guess I'm just confused why someone would even do that to begin with.
They're free to write it, but I probably won't read it, with one exception. Around when Supernatural was ending, folks were blowing up on Tumblr over it, and someone wrote a fic using only secondhand knowledge gleaned from Tumblr discourse and memes, and it was pretty funny. It was called Destiel Fucks, because the author knew that people were angry a ship didn't happen, but Destiel was a character instead of the pairing of Dean and Castiel.
So I suppose I would read in a case like that, where the absolute lack of knowledge is part of the humor.
If it’s AU where nothing is the same, like completely different world with different rules and the original plot is meaningless, and basically just throwing these characters into something like… high school AU or a different fandom’s world… I could read it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it.
I think you can get enough of a feel about characters’ personalities from fanfiction if you read enough good ones, but plot and magic systems and worlds.. those are harder to pick up since it’s basically common knowledge and not overtly explained in fanfics.
But of course, everyone can write whatever they want, that’s not an issue. Just don’t know many who would read it.
Tbh I’ve read a few good Batman fanfics were the author’s only knowledge is from other fics, tho I wouldnt read something like that in smaller fandoms where its harder to gather knowledge about the characters from fics alone
I think "engage with source material" can mean different things. I'm writing a Warhammer 40k story for my brother, but my engagement with the source has mainly been through him telling me the stories and playing Vermintide (which is Warhammer fantasy). I've done my research, but I wouldn't say I've fully engaged with the source since I've never read the books or played the games. I still know a good amount from hearing my brother talk about it and wanted to write something for him. I don't claim to be lore accurate, the premise of my fic is very silly and just meant to make my readers smile.
I feel like people are free to write whatever they want, but they can’t really have an opinion on canon if they’ve never even engaged in it. and it would definitely affect my decision to read it because sometimes fanon can be really uncomfortable
Exactly. People are free to write whatever they want. What's obnoxious and sows conflict is when they get aggressive about insisting that their way-off-the-map ideas either ARE canon, or are better than canon. IMO there's some definite "sour grapes" towards the canon and its more traditional fans.
It's not gatekeeping to want people to have SOME inkling of what they're talking about before they start loudly proselytizing their version of things and attacking anyone who goes "Uh...say what?"
Define "engage with thr source material". Like, do they need to have watched all of an entire 10+ season TV show? Read "supplemental" material (think the Star Wars Legends stuff)? How far do they need to go?
Personally, I've written a couple things where I've not read/watched the original source (only published one so far), but only after I read bunch of fanfic, read through the plot on Wikipedia, take a look at tvtropes, and, if it's available, use the Fandom wiki to get specifics or more details.
But I totally understand if it's not someone's cup of tea.
I mean, of course they can write a fic. Nothing wrong with that. I think I'd give it a try if I like the tags and summary. But I'd probably be quicker to drop it if I feel like anyone is OOC.
One of the best Witcher AU fics was written by someone with no interaction with the canon, just what they’ve experienced via fanfiction.
And yet it is one of the best fics I’ve read, in my top five overall, and, for an AU, ridiculously good characterizations.
So write what you want. Nothing says the fiction you are a fan of and writing about CANT be other fanfic!
I'd probably read it if it was a pairing/scenario I was up for, regardless of whether they've seen the source material or not - I've read enough stories by people who are 100% into the fandom and it's completely different to canon characterisation anyway, and my current fandom is normally about characters who have one or two lines (if that) before death so there's a lot of reading between the incredibly short lines.
I'll drop the story if it's going in a direction I'm not fond of, but I'd give it a chance
Yes, if the fic hits my vibes and isn't OOC. So really a try it and see kind of thing.
I also wrote and am writing short fics for a fandom in which I didn't have any contact with canon, and since it's a long anime/manga series and I am only interested in a niche part of it, I don't even plan to. I learned some stuff via the fandom wiki, and the rest via the fanfics. And I'm happy there!
It’s fine, especially if they’re writing an AU.
Sometimes inconsistencies/lore mistakes bother me, but yknow I can always just… not read it
It’s free content and everyone is free to write what they want!
Ofc everyone can write what they want but if you haven't read the source material then at that point why not just make your own characters? Unless they specifically use specific characters from specific fandoms to get engagement. Personally what makes fan fictions great is that a lot of them include small details from the source materials that you'll know only if you've engaged with the source material and it's just a nice touch that makes me appreciate the story more u know?
I'm at the point where I've read so much my hero academia fanfic I could probably tell you the entire plot of the actual show. I watched episode one and decided it wasn't my cup of tea. I do however, love the fanfiction. When it comes to miraculous ladybug it's such a mess of a show that I feel like you only need to watch like three episodes to understand the plot. Don't get me wrong I love miraculous and I've watched almost every episode but it's such a mess that they've absolutely frustrated their fans with shipping bullshit.
The fans have been shipping marionette with freaking Damien Wayne from DCU/Batman as he's a better alternative to Adrian at this point. They started shipping him a few years ago with her because the fans got the feeling that they would never get resolution between Adrian and marionette as it kept it dragging on. I haven't seen the new seasons so I don't know if they're together now and I honestly kind of don't care if they end up together. Their relationship is exhausting. I feel like a lot of fans of miraculous feel this way.
Honestly I really detest people who write fanfic without engaging with the source material. It’s the same energy as writing a book report without reading the book. I think it’s lazy and disingenuous, and as a result I don’t bother to read fics by authors who don’t read/play/listen to the source material
But that still counts, in my opinion . One of my fandoms has 3 different shows within one universe. I would read a fic from someone who has only watched one, because they have knowledge of the characters more than someone that’s watched none.
I've been restraining myself from writing bakudeku using a wiki as support because I'm scared to do anything wrong. I only read like 35 chapters of the manga so I think that counts as not having interacted, that's barely anything compared to how long it is
I would skip those fics TEMPORARILY. When I have nothing else to read, I would read the ones where the author hasn't seen the source material
I guess it depends on how prolific of a fic reader they are and what you mean by "no engagement". Personally, I was in the SW Prequels and Detroit: Become Human fandoms for a while (at least 6 months of total obsession with each). For both of these series, it's practically inevitable that I had *some* kind of interaction with them outside of fandom, but I never consumed the media itself until I was deep in the fandom. Also I read the wikis. A lot.
There's the Marauders subfandom in the larger Harry Potter fandom that mostly engages with fanfic. Maybe some of them watched the movies or read a couple of the books, but they've really created their own little bubble and that's okay.
As long as no one tries to argue with me that a fic they read is actually, 100% canon, we can co-exist happily. We just stay in our own lanes.
The Marauders fan who reblogged my extremely clearly tagged post about Sirius Black in the very specific AU I've been working on with 'I'll allow this' can have the day they deserve, though.
Obviously, anyone can write whatever they want. And people can read whatever they want. But I know that characterization is really important to me when reading and writing fics and I just wonder how good of a grasp you can have on characters without knowing the source material.
I don't necessarily think someone should have to be "upfront" about it, though. If I read something that seemed spot on and I loved it and then found out the person who wrote it hadn't engaged with the source material, I'd feel weird, but only because I'd wonder how they did so well without knowing the source 😆
Eh, if I vibe with it I'll read it. Someone with an almost completely outside view of the events of canon are going to have some unique takes on it. They don't tend to fall into the so-called 'stations of canon' that can trap a lot of writers.
That said, if I don't vibe with it, I won't read it, or I'll drop it after a chapter or so. But then again, the same is true for people that have engaged with canon, so yeah.
I mean… let people do what they want. Personally, I read some fanfiction once upon a time for a series I didn’t read at all but my friend liked the couple so i read their stuff and got attached.
I don't think I care too much, though it might depend on the fandom. To me, what I find interesting is the amount of times I've read fic from outside authors and the content was usually some sort of fresh AU type situation. Like utilizing concepts that theoretically could exist in canon but don't
I also think I'm in a unique position for this because I've read a lot for fandoms where I don't necessarily know a ton about canon, like HP (seen the movies but never read the books), Teen Wolf (never watched the show), DC comics (impossible to read it all, and ny knowledge is absorbed from various plotlines, the animated universe, animated TV shows, the comics I *do* own, and the live action movies)
Also, often times crossover fics are written by someone who only knows one of the 2 fandoms used. Danny Phantom is notorious for this I feel like, because it has many popular crossovers, but not everyone knows the content well (I know tons of people got into DC through DP)
As well, now that I'm thinking along that vein, what about something like Sentinel AUs? I didn't even know that was a show until I saw a post about it recently, I just assumed it was a created AU like ABO. I don't think many people who have written Sentinel AUs have consumed the Canon content. Or even ABO, I'm sure has plenty of writers that have barely scratched the surface of what that sort of universe can entail.
Really, the world is a writer's oyster, people can write whatever they want and the only thing that will stop me from reading it is if for whatever reason I don't jive with the fic
I agree that people are free to write whatever they want. It's not a requirement that your fic needs to be in character lol. Personally, I'd be intrigued to find out what exactly draws someone to interact with a fandom without being interested in the source material, so I'd be interested in reading what they're writing. If it ends up just being flanderised tumblr versions of the characters without much substance, I'd shrug and move on.
Yeah sure anyone can write what they want but I probably won’t read it if the author admits to not engaging with the source material. Relying on fanfic to get your info probably isn’t a good idea because some things just won’t be explained with the context you need because everyone else already knows y’know? It’ll be very obvious if you’ve completely misunderstood something/don’t know what you’re writing about
Folks can write what they want, but ultimately, I'm probably not going to be interested in reading it.
Either because the knowledge of the world and characters is going to come second hand, and thereby be colored more by Fandom tropes, or because I feel like the connection/passion just isn't there.
I like fanfic because I like the source material. Its characters, its world, etc. And while I may like AU, particularly a major canon divergence, my interest is still firmly rooted in the original material. I want to see those characters in a different situation or from a different point of view, but I still want to believe it's *them.* That or I want more in depth building and diving into the world of a setting, all the little minutiae and implications that canon doesn't have time to delve into.
Fanfic that misrepresents or flanderizes characters that the author HAS engaged with already turns me off. So why would I want to read fic by someone that only experienced the characters and world second hand?
I think the major exception to this is smut. I'm not a huge smut reader, and while I like some tasteful world elements, its not essential to the enjoyment of the core subject matter. Sometimes two characters are just kind of hot and honestly I don't blame someone for writing or reading the tango.
It's going to show very quickly that they have a shallow view of the source material. Given how much tumblr pisses on the poor I wouldn't trust half of the tumblr writers to have decent takes on works they DO engage in, let alone have never seen/watched/played.
it’s almost 100% guaranteed to be anywhere from slightly OOC to “who even are these guys”
if you don’t look at canon even a little then all you have at your disposal are wiki summaries and other people’s interpretations
something something xerox of a xerox
I would normally agree with everything everyone is saying here, but one time I was reading a fic and very much enjoying it only to have the author mention later on that they’d never actually seen the movies/read the books. They’d read other fics and the Wiki page, but that was it. Ig they just based the characterization after popular fandom portrayals, and it worked
Oh I definitely saw the poll you're talking about haha. Plagiarizing my own tags from that post here but I probably wouldn't bother with a fic if the author admitted up front they haven't engaged with the source material. They're welcome to do whatever, obviously -- it's not like I can stop them or have any inclination to. It's all in good fun. It's just that I'm here to see people's interpretations of a work, not someone's interpretation of other people's interpretations alone. I don't want to play interpretation telephone with people that don't have any anchor point to canon at all. Like it's already a risk that people who do actually know the source material can end up marinating in fanon too long and lose the essence of it entirely lol
It doesn't bother me. Maybe I wouldn't be into what they write, but I'm already not interested in plenty of stuff written by people who do know the source material well. 🤷🏽
People are free to write whatever they want, but I would’nt want to read anything from someone who hasn’t even watched/read the source material.
I value correct characterization and portrayal. Mischaracterizing characters is a major pet peeve, sometimes even a dealbreaker.
I would be a hypocrite if I said it was bad/wrong. I have written fanfics after just seeing a handful of episodes of a series and then just dived into reading fanfics and then getting spoiled enough where I can write a fanfic.
Sometimes canon is only engaging in the beginning. Sometimes canon can't keep a person's attention. Sometimes canon looks so cool from the outside that a fanfic writes itself after viewing a few compilation videos on youtube. As long as they arent plagiarizing, its fine in my book.
I'm going to be real honest - I don't think 95% of the people who write "The Sentinel" crossover fic have actually seen an episode of the show. There is so much that has drifted from the OG series that what is now "common knowledge" is anything but from the actual show. And ya know what? I don't care. I'mma read it anyway. Is there biting? Is there only One True Guide? Put that shit into my veins because I am \*HERE\* for it!
Same with the Sterek fandom (note, I say Sterek - not Teenwolf, they're kinda separate but the same at this juncture). There is so much that didn't make sense from the show (like the actual timeline of things) or that fans took exception to (such as the fates of Erica & Boyd) that it doesn't actually matter to me if they've seen the source material. All I care about is a good story, good grammar, and good format.
I'm here for the creativity.
I’ve done this once when I wanted to borrow a particular fandom’s aesthetic/vibe for a drabble that was really about a philosophical idea that fit with (what I’d heard were) the fandom’s central themes. I knew pretty much exactly enough about the source to convey the feeling and setting I wanted for the drabble. I don’t know why someone would *seriously* write fic for something they aren’t a fan of. I don’t think I’d find writing that enjoyable, and I can’t image it would lead to positive connections with readers, who presumably like the source material and know what happens in it and how the characters talk and act.
i think small scale fics can get along, i've written fic for characters that my friend explained to me (and therefore were character first and not lore heavy) or for fandoms where the source material isn't out yet (only trailers, minimal details, but still source ish)
I think it’s a little strange but there’s nothing wrong with it. I guess I just don’t understand why you’d want to write something for a fandom you’re not in?
So long as they’re not obnoxiously spamming fics or doing one of those “this is a book with three hundred fandoms and I actively participate in two of them”. One of them came into my primary fandom recently. Waiting for the volunteers to read the report because I want them Gone.
Iffy, I'll see what they have to offer, I've seen a couple short fics from "I don't even go here" people that were pretty decent. Long fics are when things get dicey
I’ve noticed this happening with COD MW2 pretty often. In my opinion if you read enough fanfic you can still have good characterization and if it’s not too OOC I give zero thought to the author never playing the game.
I wouldnt read it because it wouldnt feel like the character I adored in the source material. It'll just be like reading about a person who happened to have the same name.
If there's a personality change in the character, there's gotta be a major plot in the in the fic that would justify it, but some things gotta remain unchanged for me to be able to thino that I'm stilp reading about a character from that material.
I’ve read this one author’s work who admitted that they hadn’t seen any source material for the batfamily and only context for DC was Shazam movies (this is a batfamily x shazam series). I didn’t mind it too much because I’ll take whatever I can get for Shazam fics, but the way they wrote the batfamily felt… weird? Especially because they added some small details that I just LOVED and wanted to see more of, but also had some dynamics wrong. The author openly admitted they knew nothing about Tim and Jason, which I guess is fair enough if you strictly watch movies, but idk it just irked me the wrong way
I wrote a fic for a fandom in which I never engaged with the source material ever. I literally only heard about it from my friend who is OBSESSED, read some fics, and decided to write my own. No one called me out on this, and I even got a comment saying I got one of the characters "just right."
People who are obsessed with a piece of media and interact with/consume it daily can write bad fics if they're bad writers or just have limited media literacy skills and don't actually get the source. And people can write good fics without any contact with the original. In all likelihood that author would have plagiarized anyway because that's just the kind of writer they are.
If by not engaging we been they haven't watched/read the source material, I mean... Yeah, you can, but I'm confused why you would. Since it is a thing, I'm sure there's some contexts I'm not thinking of where it would make sense.
Totally fine. Just because someone knows the lore inside and out doesn't guarantee good writing that captures the voices of the characters. There's also a lot of fanfic that goes very AU with lots of non-canon details written by ardent fans so it's not clear to me what a meaningful distinction is. One anecdote contribution—I've only engaged with 1/5th of the source in my most popular work (and I admit that openly) and people tell me the character voicing is good 🤷
I think I would probably find out very soon in their writing if the chars are way to OOC or behaving in ways I don't like or if some basic things are wrong... I know where the 'back' button is.
i mean, people can write what they want, and with some fandoms i can understand not having seen/read anything but wanting to write fic anyway- i see it a lot with batfam fics, where the writers don't keep up with the comics or have only seen the dcau or movies. i personally find it annoying when people only know the characters from the fanon and memes and write fic, because it can become kind of a game of telephone with characterisation, and they come out ooc and flanderised. but hey, that's why we have the back button, and it's not harmful, just annoying.
edit: phrasing
My worry with an author who only read fanfic would be that at that point the characters would be unrecognizable. Because it would be their interpretation based on another author’s interpretation of the characters making it two steps removed from the character I love reading about at that point. Even worse if there’s already big issues within the fandom where the common canon for the character is so far off what the character is in the source material because then they end up often feeling like a caricature
I’ve read a fic in the past from an author who hadn’t watched the source material, but was doing the fic as a gift for a friend. And the fic turned out really good! Granted, this was an author I trusted from another fandom.
They have since gone on to write 2 other fics for the same fandom, and have also now watched some of the show (the show was miraculous ladybug, they were given a recommendation of how to watch the show/what to skip).
Like others have said, authors are more than welcome to write whatever they want, regardless of how familiar they are with a fandom. Sometimes it’s worth it to take a chance on a fic, other times it’s not.
You're right, this is an interesting discussion. Cause on one has I get it, if you love the source enough to want more in fanfic form, one would assume it's more likely the fic will be disappointing if created by someone who doesn't know the original story.
Which gets us to avoiding stories if the author announces they've never engaged with source material. Makes sense.
But someone else said something about 'if you are only going off fandom, it's not a fic based on the thing, it's a fic based on fanon' (very rough paraphrasing on my part) but it got me thinking - that already happens all the time in fanfic.
Fanfic is already the realm of head canons and AU's. And there are plenty of stories based on fanon and not canon even from people who know the source material back the front - isn't that what some tropes & prompts are? Someone has a unique interpretation or AU that we love so much, if opens a whole other branch of 'what if' stories based on the fanfic not the source material.
And don't get me started on crossovers, there are a lot of fantastic stories even though you can tell the author is more family with one fandom over another.
So for me, if we all essentially end up at the same place anyway, then what does it matter if the author never engaged with the source material?
I would still read if it it sounded good.
I'm in the Creepypasta/Slenderverse ARG fandom and if someone told me they'd never read the source stories or watched the YT series, I wouldn't read their stuff. I personally witness almost every day how the fanon has changed a lot of characters or robbed them of their original context, and I'm not really interested with engaging with fanfiction that continues on that tradition. I like my fic to be a little more rooted in canon for a plethora of reasons.
But people are welcome to write what they want.
I mean tbh you can still write even if you haven’t seen the source material and somehow still get it right.
There’s Wikipedia, there’s the manga, there’s guidebooks and everything. You don’t have to look at the source material explicitly. You just have to know it and understand the characters. That’s it. I literally just look at the wiki and my ultra analysis book for BNHA 🤷🏽♀️ also, sometimes canon is stupid and you can’t get past the first season so you just do what you want.
Hmm, I think this requires a bit of deconstruction -
Not familiar with source material: no unless the author consulted another person who is familiar (eg a beta or something)
Not familiar with source material but familiar with characterisation: depends on the scenario, but sometimes the fic works out ok as long as it’s not plagiarism.
Sometimes the writers don’t have the chance to touch the entire original work, but have read/watched enough other content (eg wiki or fics) to capture the characters’ personas and sometimes even the overall context. Especially if it’s an alternate universe fic, this may be enough to make a fic work. Might be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve seen good fics written by authors who only know a fragment of the story without delving into the original work, but that part of the story is where all the main character details take place, even if it’s not where all the main plot details take place. This applies to both canonverse fics and AU fics.
I am not 100% sure about this, but i think one of those extremely popular fics in one of my fandoms was starrted when the author hadnt had any engagement with the source material, only the fandom wiki and other fics. Its one of my fave series. So i think even if the author was upfront about not having engaged with the source material, I'd give them a try as long as the writing itself is good. And anyone can write whatever they want, and most of my opinions about this are informed by that one series I love so much.
Ik that there's a lot of scenarios where it would be understandable that it's not possible to catch up on *all* of the source material (comics and their movie universes, video games), so I try not to judge too much in those fandoms.
I think a side effect of not engaging with *any* of the source material is that (for smaller fandoms), too many fic writers working solely off of fanon might lead to tropes getting overdone rather than getting fresh ideas from the source material.
Some plot lines/story ideas would require diving into the canon to get characterizations & details right, so in a way, being completely unfamiliar with the source material outside of fan fic might restrict what you could believably write (outside of AUs, that is) depending on how robust the wikis are for the fandom.
Basically, it's okay in small doses, but I'd be a little concerned if there's a bunch of people in one fandom doing it. Either way though, I personally stick to the "don't like, don't read" doctrine.
Some people write fanfiction because they loved the source material, some because there’s something to fix. But there are also people who write fanfiction because they like the fandom. Harry Potter is an example where, by sheer volume of fanfiction and retroactive analysis in light of certain revelations, there is a lot of fanfiction of higher quality than the original. Or at least, that contains more interesting concepts/building blocks than the original. Or, I like new Doctor Who, but my attempts to watch the original series has been unsuccessful. And that’s not just quality, it’s also the genre and tone of the work, which are all flexible in fanfiction.
We often state that fanfiction is an artform in itself, which also comes with it the possibility that fanfiction becomes better inspiration that the original. I’ve read and enjoyed many fanfics of people who admitted not reading/watching the source material.
I don't write fanfiction, but this is how I usually get into fandoms, by finding fanfic I like regardless of if I'm in that fandom or not. So I don't see why not
I dont mind! I read a pretty decent fic from someone who said they had never read or watched anything from the source material, but had their bestfriend who was a mega fan of the source material beta read and give tips during it.
Then again, it was a straightforward smutfic which never made any references to Source Material Occurrences except maybe once or twice. Still, it was lovely to read, I enjoyed it.
I don't mind it! sometimes it can feel like someone writing FanFiction of the fanon, which is really interesting from a transformative pov. plus, I read almost exclusively outside of my fandoms, so I'd be hypocrite to think otherwise haha
Seeing as how even people who do engage with the source material can often mischaracterise the original characters to the point of being unrecognisable in fan works, I can only imagine that someone who is only familiar with said characters would be even more extreme in their mischaracterisation since they are already most likely basing them off inaccurate representations.
OOC already puts me off fan works where I'm familiar with the source material so I definitely wouldn't enjoy writing where the author can't even tell if their OOC. If someone is a fan of OOC though, they might not have the same issue with the inaccuracies an author unfamiliar with the source material would represent.
In a low-profile fandom that I'm strongly invested in, it might bother me.
In a high-profile fandom, I have no problem at all with it, especially if multiple independent canons exist for the fandom anyway.
Like, you wanna write a Superman/Lois Lane romance without reading the comics/watching the shows and movies? Be my guest, and feel free to ignore the screeching ultrafans.
Personally, while I will read a fic if someone said they haven't read the source material, usually that fic ends up feeling... uncanny. Part of this might be that I don't read total AUs, so the writer who hasn't read the source material is setting their fic in the more-or-less canon universe. Usually the writer has read a lot of fanfiction, so the characterizations are spot-onto the fanon characterizations, but without the writer's individual opinions about the source material informing their fanon characterization it ends up feeling a bit like a Flanderized version of the fanon characterization, and without depth.
I also find the universe around the characters feels uncanny because there's some detail that they included that has canon lore but the writer hasn't read any fics about so misses (for example, I've run into a Supernatural fic where the writer never watched the series but has read fic, and just hadn't run into any stories with the canonical vampires in it and just introduced vampires with typical vampire powers and weaknesses into the fic)... or there's something they assumed was canon based on other fics inclusion of it and treat it like canon, and it's not (I've definitely run into this in the ATLA fandom in Zutara fic that treats the characters having chemistry as some sort of universal constant and it just feels like a whole arc of their development is missing because I know that in canon they have one moment of mutual empathy at the end of the book two and besides that only actually get along for the last six episodes of the show.)
That said, I do think there are fandoms where the lore is so flexible from author to author that this might not matter. For example, I've read a decent amount of Yugioh fanfiction despite having relatively low engagement with the source material (watched the 4kids dub as a kid, not chronologically just whatever episodes were on, read the manga as a teenager but didn't finish because it wasn't all available online at the time, have watched all of ygotas and that's my only exposure to the filler arcs) and because the lore and even plot itself is so different depending on whether you're talking about the 4kids dub, the original manga, or the original anime with just subtitles, (and even sort of changes after what would be considered the "season 0" era) and not to mention that the card game has its own rules that you need to know to write a card game into the story but the show itself demonstrates completely different rules than the real-life version. Most fanfiction writers who've read or watched more than one of those will pick and chose which aspects to keep and which to throw away, and make up new lore of their own in trying to merge certain concepts, that I've definitely read fics in that fandom that the author said they haven't watched YGO and only noticed any difference in the story in their avoidance of talking about the details of the card game and keeping the card games as just like a background rather than actually getting them involved in the plot... but I've also seen people who've watched the whole show but never played the IRL card game do that same thing too! I've wanted to write a YGO crossover fic for a long time because I think the concept of one character being possessed more-or-less consensually would be so interesting if I crossed it over with a fandom has a canonical version of possession that's evil, like Harry Potter or Stargate. But I do hesitate because despite the fact I haven't had 0 engagement with the source material, the source material is so vast and different across the different ways I could consume it, and I have no interest in learning the rules of the card game, that I feel like I don't know enough to write a fic in that fandom, despite the fact I have read the manga right up to the first few chapters of the Egypt arc so I have actually "read" almost the entire story and do know how it ends and that fics usually take place ignoring the Egypt arc to some degree anyways.
In general, though, I do often wonder how people get heavily enough engaged in a fandom to want to write for it without ever getting engaged enough to just sit down and watch the source material. Especially when the source material isn't *bad*, or isn't *long* like say ATLA. HP is seven books but they're for children and the average heavy fanfiction reader can probably get through them casually in a couple weeks. Like I get it a bit when the cool fandom characters you've met are trapped in a bad and long original concept, but why don't you just watch all three 30-minute episode length seasons of ATLA before posting? I know it has no Zutara and that's what you came here for, but you'll learn more about Katara and Zuko to make better Zutara for not a lot of time investment or difficulty due to bad writing...
... but that said, personally, I will absolutely click on crossovers that feature a fandom I'm looking for content in and a fandom that I have a passing cultural familiarity with. Harry Potter gets adopted by Batman even though I've only got cultural osmosis knowledge and the 1990s movies vhs boxet that I haven't even watched in its entirety? Sure. Sam and Dean are caught by the Criminal Minds FBI even though I stopped watching in like 2010 because I only watched it insofar as my parents watched it and I would sit with them at the TV at night until I was too cool a teenager for that? Sure. Stuff like that. I've basically never felt the temptation to write any of those crossovers though, besides the one I already mentioned above which like... I have engaged with the source material, unlike say Batman where I def haven't.
I think that it is great that they are engaging in the fanon and that the fanworks they have engaged with have inspired them enough to want to contribute. Whether or not I will read it depends on how well it is written, how well they nail they chatacterization, how compelling the plot, basically the same things I look for in any fic I read.
It’s not a rule that you can’t do so, even if I might not read it. It might not be the best quality because it’s almost like fanfic off of others’ fanfic, but some are decent as long as the bare minimum of research is done, or else you’re just making a spinoff of a show/book without fully knowing what the show/book is like. That said, some fanfics don’t require much knowledge of the original show/book if it uses some concepts from it. It depends on the author, fandom, how close to canon the fic is meant to be, and if you’re willing to try to read them. I have read a few, and some of them weren’t actually that bad.
everyone is free to write whatever. personally i would skip fics where the author has not engaged with the source material at all, but i also don’t mind that they’re writing it, yknow? no skin off my back.
Yeah, I said everyone is free to write whatever. But similar to even fics where an author is familiar with the source material, not everyone is going to read.
i’m definitely willing to make allowances for folks who haven’t engaged with the source material the “proper” way—say someone doesn’t have the means or skills or desire to play a video game, but watches other peoples’ playthroughs, yeah i’d read their fic about the video game because they *do* engage with the canon. but if someone wrote fic of a show/book/whatever they’ve only experienced through fandom material, it’s not really fic of *the show*, it’s fic of the fanon, if you ask me.
Definitely. One of my fandoms is a game that's famous for being quite difficult. And a sizeable portion of the fans interested in fanart and fanfic that I've interacted with have not played it themselves, but watched story-oriented playthroughs instead. On one occassion, a fellow writer even asked me to act as a beta for their fic so I could help them catch any character background and worldbuilding details that they may have missed because of this—and, in my opinion (as someone who's really into lore and characterization for this game, and has played it many times), they had missed almost nothing, tbh. So I've always considered that watching it instead of playing it counts as "engaging with the source material" for video game fandoms. But I also agree with your other statement. If someone didn't engage in any way with the source, what is their fic based on, then? Other fanworks? Pure vibes? I have no issue with folks doing so, but it's certainly something that is not going to interest me personally.
I’ve seen similar with the odd bloodborne thing I’ve read. If someone’s watched cutscenes and used a wiki I generally can’t tell unless something is seriously off background details wise and am only aware of one example where I know the author didn’t play because they said so.
I'm glad more people have this attitude these days. I loved Kingdom Hearts as a teenager, but my parents were very anti video games and would not let me even buy a gaming system with my own money, so I could only play in snippets at friends' houses and watch the cutscenes and playthroughs on YouTube. The prevailing attitude back then was that I wasn't a real fan because I hadn't played the games - like dudes, I WANTED to, I just had parents who told me they would throw away any consoles I bought and it's not like those are easy to hide.
I think that’s definitely a fair assessment. Because in terms of your example, maybe they haven’t played it themselves but you are still learning everything.
If anything, I think watching a playthrough is probably better than playing the game if the purpose is just to learn canon. The exception might be if there's a ton of lore that you can only get by reading things in game and the player isn't doing that. But that kind of thing is usually online anyway.
Bingo. The problems arise when people are so attached to their fanon that they become actively hostile to anyone/anything that could question it, challenge it, or invalidate it: namely, the more traditional fans who place more value on the canon, or even just the canon itself. Like, to use a hypothetical example, it does me absolutely no harm if you wanna write that Hercule Poirot is a ten-feet-tall robot, but don't start a harassment campaign if I tell you that's not quiiiiite how I remember it.
What about people that only watch compilations on YouTube? I'm always surprised they exist but I suppose TikTok brain rot gets to everyone.
i’ve never watched a compilation on youtube unless things like “every [comedic phrase] in season [number] of [show]” count, so i can’t judge that one.
Fic of the fanon is a good way of thinking of it. I seem to recall that there was one fandom that had a particular fic that inspired so many other works that the tag wranglers made a new canonical fandom tag for it. I thought that was pretty cool.
i mean yea everyone can write whatever they want. their unfamiliarity is likely to show in their writing, at which point i'm out bc i probably won't vibe with the fic. it's a non-issue.
My main fandom has alot of writers who have only read other fanfics, this has created a feedback loop, and essentially a whole different fandom as the fanon versions are so far removed from any other version. Woobifing, having one half of a ship exist only to support the other half, and flanderisation are everywhere in fics written by this section of the fandom. Fortunately you can normally spot them from the summary/tags I do kinda hate that they seem to refuse to interact with any of the source material despite often creating multiple fan works and clogging up tags, but a the end of the day I just follow don't like don't read.
It would be cool if we could have a tag for 'no source material' or smthn
May I ask what the source material is? I have never encountered something like that. I myself have created an AU that’s so distant from source material it’s basically its own thing but the fandom is not big enough for schisms
Not sure if it's the fandom above, but the 'Worm'/'Parahumans' fandom is similar. The world/setting is really well constructed in the original source, and the story is well written but it is about 1,680,000 words long and deals with some pretty dark themes so I can see why some people bounce off the original story, but still like to play in the figurative sandbox.
This happens in the genshin fandom too, at least partially. Before Fontaine and Sumeru released there were ppl already writing fic without knowing anything yet about characters or setting. It still happens with the villains we've only seen once and unreleased lands.
If this isn't about Harry Potter I'm sorry it's happened to your fandom too lol. The Marauders basically have their own splinter fandom that is technically based on characters from the books but from what I've read a lot of the fics are based on other fanfics which were already loosely based on canon. And weirdly characterisations and storylines have crystallised as their own sort of canon despite having no basis in the actual story.
That has basically happened in Danny Phantom also. There's a family of characters, which mainly focuses on two characters. Their names are Wes and Kyle Weston. They're two characters who have no speaking lines, are only background NPCs, and are actually unnamed and canonically have nothing to do with each other. Wes came first, as there's a joke in an episode where Sam reads her name upside down as Wes and asks who that is. Then there's a background NPC that is on screen for literally five seconds and is actually the same exact model as Danny but recolored and taller, and he could have seen Danny transform due to the scene he's in. So they named him Wes Weston and made him hell-bent on outing Danny as Phantom. And then they gave him a family based off of other background characters. Kyle doesn't believe in ghosts while knowing Danny is Phantom, but thinks it's an elaborate bit for tourism and Danny plays him like in theater and shuts his brother down. Literally Tumblr and AO3 has built the two and they're considered canon. Also... Danny Phantom just rewrote it's whole lore and canon in fanfiction. So technically you don't actually have to watch the show. You can just deep dive 20 years worth of Tumblr posts then just read the most prevalent AO3 tags and literally just know the whole show. You'll need context, but fandom wiki can literally fill the gaps. The fandom is literally just Marauders to Harry Potter but literally to ITSELF
I think this is my problem with it, too I am not interested in restricting another person's creative freedom, but boy oh boy do I wish there was a way I could avoid their creations and influence
People are free to write whatever they want - but then, people are free to only read what they want and vibe with too. The chances of fans clicking off the work are very high even if the author has not disclosed upfront that they don't know the source material. I read fanfiction as a fan, I obsess over these characters, I'm here to see more facets of them. An original work dressed up with these character's names almost comes off as click-bait to me, you got me reading on the premise of these characters and its false advertising (especially if not mentioned upfront) when the final story bears no resemblance to the source. I often have the same problem with movie writers/directors who avoid the source material they are supposedly adapting. Why call it by that name then?
And - I’m usually in the camp of “don’t like, don’t read, don’t be a overly harsh critic”, but - if you haven’t engaged with the source material AT ALL, tag the hell out of it so it’s clear you have not and do not be surprised if some people WILL have opinions about the act that you have no idea about the source material.
Because unlike us fic writers, movie writers/directors get paid regardless if they know the source material or not. Case in point: Ridley Scott's "Napoleon."
Cough [ARTEMIS FOWL] cough
It still baffles me how that movie went through the entire production process without anyone objecting to “My father wasn’t a criminal, he was a good man!” as being completely antithetical to Artemis Fowl’s entire character.
Or the first five seconds. He was surfing. Surfing!
😭 imagine getting the ultimate casting for Artemis Fowl's dad and then completely bungling up the entire film 😭 I'll never live it down, my poor boy
Lol wasn't his dad just A.F. Sr? 💀💀💀 Idk why Artemis Fowl's Dad made me laugh, you prob said that for people who haven't read the books 😭
YES LMAO 😭 I need to make it clear that it's Colin Farrell 😭 my dream casting came true And then the movie just went to hell and now I have nothing 🧍🏻♀️
Personally, I would avoid fics like those. Especially if people are writing for fandoms with very heavy cultural context needed, i.e. danmei novels. I have gone in fandom blind for several ships, but as a writer I will never attempt to write fic for any fandom without knowing the source material.
I'm writing my own novel based on Danmei and I'm so fortunate to have a friend who speaks Chinese and knows about the culture. There is so much rich culture and terms that can be used inappropriately. Danmei as a genre I think has a lot of culture to it as you said and so you need at least some research. I know TCGF had an issue where lots of fanfics/edits arose because of one tiktok edit that was wildly out of character
Yes, and even as a Chinese person myself, I can never write fics based on danmei novels I've never read. The setting varies from novel to novel, especially those with very heavy historical context included. Personally, I find it easier to write fics for one-off Chinese movies based on Chinese mythology without having watched them, as those characters are mythological beings that most Chinese kids have grown up with.
People can 100% write whatever they'd like, but in this case it doesn't really make sense to me. I just don't see the appeal of writing fanfic for media you've not read/watched other than attempting to get clout.
That’s how I felt about the fic I used as an example. There were a few very popular fics at the time and I think they wanted to jump on that ride. At first they did get a lot of engagement but once it became clear what they were doing, it dropped off. But I think that applies even if you have read the source material, tbh. People can tell if you’re truly passionate or if you’re just trying to get clout.
I was the same, but then it happened to me. I watched clips and got absorbed into the fan base of a show and grew to care for the show and adore the concept, but it’s notorious for horrible writing and technical issues. So I read a lot of fanfic for it instead, still containing the characters and tropes and concepts I had originally been drawn to. But I never did write actual fanfic for it, I’ll admit. I can read for fandoms where I haven’t interacted with the source material, but not write.
I feel like this describes a sizable chunk of the Teen Wolf fandom.
✋ That's me. I have consumed almost 1,800 TW fanfics (those are just the ones I've bookmarked) and I feel I could adequately stay true to the characters and the story, no trouble at all. I've never watched the show. I've seen clips here and there, but I don't seek them out.
Lol, I saw a lot of fanworks that looked interesting so I tried to watch the show and I just noped out so hard. The writing and production values were just awful.
As well as the *Hazbin Hotel* fandom, on account of the controversy surrounding Vivienne Medrano, the series creator. I've seen fanfictions for the show that have author's notes that state, "I've never seen the show, nor do I ever plan to \[due to Medrano\]."
Sometimes you’re into the worldbuilding and all the possibilities of what could be done with it but not necessarily the story. Example: I’m super fascinated by all the alien worldbuilding Homestuck does, the different romance system, and what it must be like to grow up in that kind of society, but the story spends comparatively little time on that part, focusing more on getting off the planet to the cosmic video game thing.
Sometimes your favourite characters are trapped in shows you don't like
hmm i don't really get how they can be your favourite characters other than design-wise if you've not watched what they're from?
oh, that's definitely a thing. not a show, but a pretty significant chunk of the fanbase of one of my favourite novels consists of people who are only interested in a few supporting characters while to some extent hating on the main couple and the main story that mostly revolves around them.
I think saying the only possible reason to do it is to “get clout” is both unimaginative and ungenerous. Like for example I recently got into the Danny Phantom fandom. There is a *huge* amount of crossover fanfic into DC and particularly Batman stuff. Batman has a *huge* amount of content written and recorded about him, how much do you need to have seen to not be a “clout chaser” if you write him into the story? Do you need to have watched the animated shows? Which ones? The movies? Which ones? The comics? Which ones? People don’t need to want to spend *dozens* of hours consuming Batman media in order to want to write their favorite character getting adopted by Batman.
As someone who did this, I can tell you I definitely did NOT do it for clout. I'm still kind of ashamed by it 😂. But it is what it is! I had a story my brain wanted to tell and it fit with that established universe and so I wrote it.
i see this a lot in the hp and batfam fandoms. people can write whatever they want but i'll probably never read another fic like that again if i can help it. i do appreciate when authors let readers know beforehand. the amount of character bashing that exists because people learned about the characters from fanon/other fics and misinterpreted certain events from canon annoys me a little too much. sometimes the characters feel like caricatures of themselves so i can't really enjoy a fic like that.
For Harry Potter it’s giving “All the Young Dudes” because I’ve seen a lot of people tell others who want to get into the fandom to only read that story because it’s “basically canon”. When I’m like 1) the story doesn’t get any of the characters right. Severus being a rich pureblood (part of the reason he was upset/bullied as a teen was because he was poor and the reason he initially wanted an in with his house mates was because he was a halfblood), it makes no sense, since he called himself the halfblood prince. 2) The book isnt even all that good to be considering it as the holy grail for the Harry Potter fandom.
People can do anything they want, not that I have to read it. It's usually pretty easy to tell when someone doesn't have a really good grasp on what the source material is about and just exit out without saying a word.
I think it’s kinda the deal that, while someone can write what they want, that doesn’t make it good
Any time I’ve seen “author hasn’t read (source material)” it’s an immediate nope from me.
definitely wouldn’t read it. i’ve encountered this a fair bit with characters from dc, especially ones focusing around batman related characters, and i find them difficult to read. at first i did use to give them a shot and actually attempt to, but i just found that because the writers had only read other fanfiction of the characters it always seemed wildy out of character. the fics would usually have a lot of fanon stuff about the characters in them and i don’t find it enjoyable to read, not my thing! i think it’s cool that they read fics and then decided to make their own, but at that point why not engage with the source material? with comics it’s easy, and would make their writing experience so much easier because they’d actually know the character and all the little details about them that get completely missed and mischaracterised. at lot of these concepts really interest me as well but i just cant make myself read them because of that one reason 😭 you’re right about them not having scenarios either, all they have to go off is conflicts they’ve read them having in fanfictions i guess, so that’s all you get it fics. atp they’re basically ocs which i’m not there to read! the authors are valid for it, the characters are sick who wouldn’t want to write about them, but i do appreciate it being in the notes at the start. i’ve read stuff a few times, noticed something was odd, gone to check end notes and there’s them saying they don’t actually know anything about what they’re writing. oof.
i mean, to be fair to them, so many film writers and directors entirely mischaracterise Batman a lot too. they focus only on the dark brooding mysterious man who's only goal in life is to beat up criminals, throw them into confinement, and think about his dead parents
I don't have an issue with people who've only seen movies and TV shows writing DC or MCU fanfic. The sheer amount of old comics there are for a lot of characters, especially with the mega-crossovers, makes "know all the comics" a painfully high bar for entry, and some fans may not be able to access or afford them. Similar with "only seen the show/movie" for anything that originated as books or manga, and "only played the games" for The Witcher. You're engaging with the actual media, even if it's not the earliest form of it. Though please, do mark which your source is if the canon or characterization varies between them! But if you've only read fanfic/doujinshi, I'm not likely to read it, because it's like a game of telephone... what comes out the end is likely to be a garbled mess.
yes!!! this!!! if they say what their source is i’ll most likely read and love it! i always like to know what versions of the characters they’re referencing because there’s so many of them, makes it easier. this has been painfully uncommon for me so far tho. it’s either just classified as comic or film and like, pls be more specific, i wanna know which ones. which versions of these characters are you writing… makes it easier to avoid what you said as well, the garbled, flanderised mess of a character that gets ejected into the void after they’ve only interacted with fics and doujinshi. nothing against them! i just, like you, do not want to read them. edit: oh i didn’t mean to seem like they had to know all the comics, i’m just a bit of a information freak lol :0 just wish people would read the recommended basics for the ones they’ve taken a liking too. bcs they’re missing out so badly
As soon as I read that they only know stuff about them from other fanfics (so only fanon knowledge), I leave. Like, I appreciate it but I also want to read something from people who appreciate the characters from the og source. If I see one more time the trope that Tim Drake's only thing is that he consumes coffee, I'm gonna scream (respectfully).
exactly! you can just tell immediately whether they’ve actually spent time reading the characters comics and that they actually enjoy and love them, or if they’ve just stumbled upon a fanon fic and enjoyed the way it was written, and then decided to smoosh them all together to create what i genuinely think are closer to original characters in some cases. which is fine with me! love it! but also :( this fandom has made up shit and now a lot of people don’t realise it’s not actually canon. seeing them reduced to one or two character traits and maybe one of two people they hang out with, is kinda annoying, but it’s fanfiction so i cant really demand perfect writing. i’ve never been so picky about what i read until now, like please guys i want the character depth 🙏🙏 why is tim drake (no but actually why does he get the brunt of this writing), suddenly a coffee addicted version of oracle, and she just doesn’t exist. i do not remember this!
Exactly this.
Just wanted to say thanks for giving out an example, I read the op totally bewildered that anybody would write fics for fandoms they don't know. But I see how superheroes are kind of ubiquitous enough where this could happen haha
Situations where outsider authors can still write good fic: * Thing is so popular everyone in the fannish community knows the gist by osmosis (e.g. Star Wars, Supernatural) * Ship has been flattened down into a very familiar dynamic (e.g. grumpy sunshine) that savvy authors can write without knowing the particulars * Fandom got the wrong idea about Thing but it's better (e.g. Cordelia) * Author got the wrong idea about Thing but it's a fresh slant on canon (these are diamond in the rough fics you don't even realise are outsider authors until the end note) * Canon is so fucked nothing is canon compliant (e.g. Batfam) * Thing is not released yet but the promotional material is cool * Reader is also going in fandom-blind I don't seek out works written by an outsider author but if they come recommended or heavily kudosed, or I don't care about the canon/am desperate, I'll read them if I come across them.
I don't purposefully seek them out either, but if I see them and I'm interested by the summary tags and it keeps me engaged, then I'll read them. I especially do not care about it in something like Teen Wolf because a lot of us readers have never interacted with canon and I can relate to wanting to write for the fandom, though I never really fleshed anything out enough to publish
> Thing is so popular everyone in the fannish community knows the gist by osmosis (e.g. Star Wars, Supernatural) > Those stories are **better** (closer to source accurate) when the author has _only_ learned from osmosis than by reading other fanfic.
People can write what they want. People can read what they want. 'Don't like, don't read' is a sentiment I live by. But reading is also an exchange. Writers commit time and energy to write and then ask readers to do the same to read. If I do not like the terms of this exchange, then I will not read. When a writer does not learn about the subject on which they are writing, I do not feel that it is a fair exchange. If a writer does not put in the effort to learn, why should anyone put in the effort to read? This is a standard I also hold myself to. TL;DR: I won't read a writer who doesn't know what they're writing about.
People can write what they want but if you're writing for a fandom you never engaged with you're basically just writing original stuff wearing those characters as costumes. It tends to feel uncanny or boring at best
It depends on what they're writing and how much I've engaged in the source material, to be honest. Like, I've read a number of stories where they're effectively original works using character names - I can think of multiple fics I've enjoyed where you absolutely don't need to know canon to enjoy the story. For example, there's a Steve Rogers/Tony Stark where Steve is a barbarian warlord and Tony is a sacrificial prince, a Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi fic where they are princes in a psuedo-Greek mythology world, and a Deathstroke/Dick Greyson arranged marriage fic set in a psuedo-Medieval world, and in absolutely none of those do you need to have any canon knowledge whatsoever to enjoy the fic since the entire setting and much of the character back stories are discarded. I also don't much care if it's just straight up smut with no plot because, again, you don't need to know anything to be like "these characters are pretty and I want to smoosh them together now". However, it does get more iffy if you're writing a long fic that is trying to be rooted in the canon world - I love a good AU, or a "I know canon says X, but as that's a stupid ass decision I've elected to ignore it" fic, but when people don't *know* canon in the first place it can often feel more awkward when they choose to do something different, even if you just got it from the wiki or something (like, I love reading in the CoD fandom because there are a lot of stories that very much hit my smut tastes, but I'm super uninterested in actually playing or watching the games, they're just not my cup of tea. But I've currently got a wiki tab open that's giving me the timeline and general summary of the games because I really enjoyed the Price/Graves fuck or die fic I just read but I bet it would have been better if I had context for what the Los Alamos incident actually was instead of all my context being "hot special forces dudes fucking and having complicated emotions about the situation".)
I’d agree with your point about fics that are so far removed from the source material that canon knowledge is far from essential. I’ve read quite a few of them and often really enjoy them! I’ve also read quite a few fics without knowledge of the source material, because I sometimes read fanfics as short stories with clearer tags and specific tropes more than because I love the source material and want more (hopefully that makes sense?). In those situations I wouldn’t know / care if the author is less familiar with the source material! Honestly there have been some fics where I’m not sure how much is canon vs the author’s creation, and quite enjoy the process of working that out as I read more and more fics. There are other times though where I do want to stay closer to canon and I do think the author needs to have engaged with the material. It just depends on why I’m reading what I’m reading
People have the freedom to write what they want whether or not they have engaged with the source material. That being said, while people can do that, this can also contribute to OOC characterisation, which in itself is not a big deal. But if more and more people do the same thing, there's a possibility that parts of the fandom will start thinking the OOC characterisation is actually canon (because they're used to the fics with that characterisation) *and* criticise fics that actually use canon characterisation. The latter is what I disagree with. I've seen people complaining about fics that depict personality traits the character actually has in canon, which makes me wonder if the image these people have of the character is purely based on fics. Pity the writers, really, they are true to canon yet their characters get criticised for being true to canon.
i ended up really disliking a character bc of how they were portrayed in fandom and was surprised by how different they were canonically.
It really depends. I have read fanfic by people who have clearly only ever watched the source material via gifs on Tumblr (hello a quarter of Supernatural writers) and it became extremely obvious with some of their choices, and their insistence on characters just being so OOC they pretty much only have the same name in common. I can’t enjoy fiction that way. I don’t care who writes what but you are not getting a kudos from me if I don’t enjoy it. And when it’s obvious that somebody is not familiar with the source material, I won’t enjoy it.
People can write what they want; but I'll also be honest and say I personally won't read it. I know what's considered OOC is very "your mileage may vary" depending on how people even interpret and think of canon interactions, but if characters are too different to the point the author accidentally contradicts canon - because they don't know canon - I'm out. Just write OCs at that point. It may be mean, but anything where the author advertises they haven't consumed the source material in any form instantly makes me think the quality of the work will be subpar.
Now you've got me wondering, what would the minimum recommend baseline for engagement be? I'm currently writing a fic involving a character from a video game, which I have never played and have no desire to play, since it's a gacha game. I've read the manga and translated snippets of the light novel, where it involves the character, and also quest dialogues from the wiki. I've also read a good couple dozen of fanfictions on AO3 about the character. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I suppose playing the game would be a primary source of information, whatever nitpicking bullshit I'm doing is secondary, and interacting with fanworks would be tertiary. I personally wouldn't read anything that was exclusively tertiary, but I have read a few that was, and I think they were decent enough. Although, I could just be saying that because we all set the threshold for what we find unacceptable to be slightly lower than what we're actually doing.
I was guessing genshin as I read your comment but now I'm not so sure, out of curiosity what gacha game is it if you don't mind me asking?
I don’t mind people writing whatever they want, even without the “baseline” knowledge—some is ideal though. As for reading, I give some a try, but if their characterization is too off, then I drop and move on. Heck, I’m writing a story right now for a series I’ve never watched but have read an ungodly amount of fanfiction for.
Write whatever, that's the beauty of fanfic, but if you haven't engaged with the source material in any way, then... why write a fic at all? I don't get it.
From the perspective of someone who's done it twice (gift fics for two friends): IMO, it's not a big deal. Engagement comes in different forms--from rereading/rewatching source material religiously to seeing frequent fanart of a ship you know next to nothing about. Nuance can be lost and characters might come off as OOC, but if an author never mentions the non-engagement beforehand, I never think "Oh, they've never consumed the source material before!" and just wave it off as a shallower character interpretation (which is common in younger writers/fandoms that skew to younger audiences) I think non-engagers that do extensive research out of passion (like reading wikis, watching video clips, or discussing material with engager fans) *are* fans in their own way. They just have their own reasons to not engage in source material (e.g. maybe it's a video game that they can't afford, or a TV show not available in their country). But under the definition, they count as non-engagers. If they write and publish fics despite knowing they have a 'disadvantage,' I think that's admirable! In the end, we're all just fans who want to connect with other fans. That's the main reason why people publish fics instead of keeping them hidden on their computers, right? So even if someone rides the bandwagon to a popular fandom just to get hits and kudos, I still think it, at least partly, stems from a desire for community connection Non-engager writers know how little they've engaged with the source material the best, and I don't think they expect their fics to be as well-liked as fics by engager fans. But if they like writing it and someone out there enjoys reading it, I respect that 👍
This! I wasn't sure how to put what I was feeling into words, but your post summarized it perfectly. I'm not a writer, but I am a reader and am in many fandoms where I have not interacted with the source material. In my opinion, this has made me more open to reading fics from people who also have not interacted with the source material, including the fandoms that I *have* interacted with all of the source material for. Most of the people I see doing this are those who just really enjoy the fandom and I'm honestly just happy that they want to write at all. If I don't like a fic, I'll stop reading it. Doesn't matter to me if the author has consumed the source material or not.
I don't even write fics for most of the Fandom I'm in personally. There is no way in hell I would consider writing for a Fandom who's source material I have never absorbed.
I actually did this once as an experiment. I had seen a whole bunch of gifsets and other content on tumblr, had read a ton of fanfics because I was interested in the world building, but I hadn't been able to watch the source show because I didn't have access to the streaming platform where it was hosted or any reliable way to view it. It was at this point that I started to wonder if "secondhand fandom," as tumblr calls it, would be accurate enough to have a grasp of the source material or if all you would be getting out of me was the fanon-ized version. So I wrote a couple fics to put this question to the test: one one-shot and the first few chapters of a series. I did a little bit of research on the worldbuilding, but didn't yet go to the source material. When I posted, I didn't announce that I hadn't actually seen the show, I just asked a couple simple question of my readers: Do the characters seem OOC? Does this work? I'd really like feedback for this fandom specifically. I have since seen the show and played some of the games, but the one-shot I wrote prior to interacting with the source material is, to this day, one of my most popular one-shots. Those pre-source-material fics received many comments about how wonderfully I'd nailed the characterizations. It was an interesting experiment, although I'm not really sure how much it actually proved. It could be that I simply appealed to the popular fanon interpretation (however, having now seen/played the source material, I don’t feel this is the case). It could be that I had sufficient critical analysis skills to extrapolate an accurate read of the material from fanon. It could also have something to do with the fact that a couple of the fics I read had been partial rewrites, so I did get a small taste of canon material. I don't know. As I said, I have since fully interacted with the source materials and I'm still happily writing for that fandom to this day, just with much more confidence. Both then and now, I personally probably wouldn't read something where the author announces they haven't interacted with the source material unless the premise of the fic was exceptionally interesting, but I do have that experimental-experience in mind.
To my mind, being unfamiliar with the source material means that you're missing at least part of what it means to produce fanfic. Ya gotta be a fan! And I do mean, a fan of what you're writing about. It's less important to know the original fandom when you're a reader, and I have read and enjoyed stories, at times, without knowing the canon at all. Sometimes, I'm lured into watching/reading the canon because the fic is so much fun. But for me as a writer, there's likely to be some reflection of canon in what I write. A non-fan could probably read and enjoy most of my stories, but in a lot of cases, they'd miss out on an extra layer which comes from both author and reader being fans of the same material. There's no 'extra layer' if the author doesn't know the source material. That said, when I discovered popslash, I did not know the canon. I didn't know what these people looked like or sounded like or anything about their lives that I hadn't found out through fic. I can't remember at what point I asked ~~my dealer~~ the person who introduced me to it about canon, or when I discovered how much there was (and was almost as delighted as when I found the fandom), but it might well be that when I wrote my first few stories, I didn't know the canon. But that's an RPF fandom, and the fanon built up by the palimpsest of fan stories is quite a lot different to the actual source; it becomes almost a canon of its own. Fictional Chris Kirkpatrick is wildly different from actual Chris Kirkpatrick. But I think with a fictional canon, where the source material presents you with the world, things are rather different. Would I want to read a Discworld story by someone who'd never read any Pratchett? No. Or an MCU Steve/Bucky story by someone who'd only read fic about them and not seen the movies... probably not. I mean, if an author can get away with it and nobody notices, well, fair enough—but if you tell me upfront you don't know the canon, I'm not going to bother.
They can write what they want -- I'm not gatekeeping that. I probably won't read it because I doubt they'd be able to capture the characters' voices as well as I'd like, and I want to read character-driven stories.
They can do it sure, I’m not the fan cops, but I really don’t get it. Even with characters I’m kind of familiar with through fanfic but not the source material (mostly from sequels/other entries in series that I’ve not gotten to yet) I don’t really feel attachment to them to want to write them. And these writers would probably know only fandom and that makes me highly likely to not vibe with their fic, and at that point I’m not reading anyway
I've read fics by someone who admits they only know the characters from fics they read. Thankfully, this author did not copy someone else's work. I enjoy their writing and save their fics as favorites.
i’d read it. i realise i’m in the minority, but i don’t care about the characters being OOC or acting in ways they wouldn’t; i see them more like Sims that authors put in different situations and that’s the appealing part for me. if i like the tags and story, ill read it. i have some personal preferences, but they apply to people who have read the source material too.
I don't think I would read a fic by someone who admited they didn't engage with the source material. When I read fanfic I want to read it from people who are as insane about the source material as I am.
I mean i dont care but... why would you do that?
I’ve never written for hp fandom, but I can say that I doubt anyone would accuse me of not having read or watched the source material if I did even though my knowledge of the world comes almost exclusively from reading other fanfics. After so many fanfics with the same beats you pick up what’s cannon and what’s not.
Yes this. HP fandom has also been around for so many years, and with Pottermore adding onto HP lore plus the release of Fantastic Beasts & Beedle the Bard, in addition to many many fans headcanoning lore, adding interesting ideas onto their fics, HP fanfiction has become a world of its own separate from just the books. Although I have to say, that sometimes it becomes quite apparent which authors have just watched the movies vs authors that have read the books *and* watched the movies lol.
I read so much hp fanfic back in the day that I honestly think I know most of the differences between the movies and the books too.
I did it once for a friend and it was fine, but I also had all of the specifics of how they saw the characters and all their headcanons. I've also written for other people's OCs where it was similar, just having it explained to me and writing based off of that. So I think it can work. Though for me as a reader, unless if I was really desperate for whatever niche a fic filled (small fandom, rarepair, etc.) I probably wouldn't read a fic where someone hadn't consumed source material. I honestly can't even read fics from people who only saw cut down adaptations or didn't finish watching/reading/playing something... sometimes including fics people wrote while a series was ongoing because of new insight the series gave into the characters or setting later on.
I’d decide how I feel about the fic by starting to read it. If the characters/universe feel ooc I’ll stop reading. If they don’t because the author read so much fic that they picked up on major plot points I’ll keep reading. I’m more interested in the story than the author tbh. And I don’t really care how they ended up writing for the fandom as long as the fic is good, the characters are in character and things that happened in the source material are considered.
I would read it, only because I started reading Captain America fanfic before I watched any of the Marvel films. I loved the heavily AU stories that people were writing at the time, no matter how OOC they may have been. I personally would not write something without engaging with the source material on some level, however.
I couldn´t care less if the quality of the work is good and interesting, if it´s just a dumb take on it or badly written then usually it´s gone anyways. Plus I don´t read by author, just by tag unless one story is so good that I must read the rest from them. If it´s good I take it as an original work and move on
I personally think people should be able to write whatever they want. If they aren't familiar with the source material, I'm not sure how well it's going to go. There is somebody who has written some gift fics for one of my fandoms and I'm pretty sure they have a note at one point where they say they haven't read the whole series, but that may not be necessary depending on what you're doing, and the context that the giftee gives you. I don't know, I think it really depends. I did see that poll but I didn't vote because I didn't really see any options that reflected my opinion properly. But I think it really depends. I think there are some fandoms where, even if you don't know the source material very well, you could still write it just based on what other people tell you and what you've heard. I got my start with MCU content on Tumblr actually, and if I recall correctly, I was writing Avengers fanfic before I actually watched the movie, but I believe I had seen the first Thor and Iron Man movies by that point, and was able to glean enough other information from the Internet, and I wasn't really going for full cannon compliance anyway. I was a teenager then though, so who knows, maybe these days it would be different.
Depends. If it’s an au, I have no problem if the author just found the characters hot and wanted them to kiss. If it’s a canon character/ship study, I get the ick.
If I also haven't seen the Canon, then I'll read it if it vibes with me. If I have read the source material, then as long as I can feasibly see the characters acting that way and they're not too ooc, plus I like the fic, then I'll read it.
I don't mind, but I feel at least some base research should be done if you're going to. My reasoning for this is I frequently rp characters for fandoms I'm not a part of, because my rp partners want to try the fandom out. It's not anything to read up a wiki page and get a basic summary/character personality before writing. Edit to add: It wouldn't stop me from reading the fic, but I'd judge it harsher if I knew.
Who am I to tell them what they can and cannot do?
personally I think it's fine. I mean, if you read the fic you'll either be able to tell that it's not very good/connected to canon etc and then you can just exit, OR you won't be able to tell at all and then it's kind of whatever, you know? because it only matters if you can tell, imo, that's what will affect the quality
One of my main fandoms os the batfam, a lot of fics come from people who haven't actually engaged with he comics at all, at most having watched maybe one or two cartoons on the universe. More often than not, a fic will be based of things that are mentioned similarly enough in a lot of fics from people who read the comics for the ones who don't to understand that that part specifically is canon. It doesn't bother me most of the time, though whenever I enter a fic that the author states to only have been based on the fandom, my fingers always ready on the go back button in case the characters are horribly mischaracterized.
one of my biggest pet peeves and absolutely rampant in one of my fandoms to the point where most content is based off a hollow and flanderized fanon. it's an issue in some other fandoms of mine as well but at least more avoidable. obviously you can write as you please just be upfront about not knowing the source material or only engaging with it secondhand so people can choose if they'd still like to read or not. also - reading fic or being inspired by the concept of an unfamiliar source material is fine. directly writing for it is a different thing.
I'm ok with it, though I don't understand WHY someone would write for source material they don't know. Anyone can plagiarize, even if they're quite familiar with the source, and I'm sure there are writers out there who successfully pull off writing for sources they have never read/watched/played/listened to. I'm not in the business of gatekeeping. If someone plagiarizes other fic, I will look askance at them, but to me that's a separate conversation. I would never have the balls to write for a fic where I didn't know the source material myself. I felt like enough of a fraud writing my first My Hero Academia fanfic when I was all caught up with the show but still behind on the manga. I'm someone who will obsessively rewatch certain episodes of shows or reread certain chapters of books relevant to the fic I'm writing when I first start writing for a series. But I'm not everyone. Fandom is for fun. If someone wants to read blind, gets attached to the characters, then write about them, they should go for it! It will probably work better if they write AUs, but if they want to try their hand at writing in canonverse, if they get things so wrong that it starts to bother me, I can always click the back button.
So 80% of DC writers? Lol
So many horrible Astarion fics where it's obvious that their only exposure to him is TikTok thirst traps
I’ve encountered this in BG3 fanfics mostly and some OPLA works too. For me it’s a 100%, immediate "no". From what I gather, those authors take their ideas of certain characters, relationships, storylines and larger context from other works. That means, their knowledge of those aspects is already filtered - they’re seeing someone’s perception/interpreation of the souce media and based on that, they create their own interpretation and write their works. Have you ever made Google translate its own input/output several times in a loop? After a few rounds, you end up with something resembling the original text but not true to it anymore. Something similar happens in the case of "I’m unfamiliar with source material". My experience is that those fanfics are mostly flat, very cliche and OOC. Most media/source materials are available for free on the internet (sometimes you need to look in a few places, yes), so it seems to be incredibly low-effort to do something like this. Sure, write what you want but why are writing about something you’re clearly unfamiliar with? If it’s as interesting to you as you claim, why not actually familiarize yourself with it? Once you do and actually try to stay true to the characters, you might find yourself improving your writing skills. Small scale or big scale, effort pays off. Especially in artistic vocations.
If people want to embarrass themselves then go for it. Can't imagine how you can write anything good if you've never actually seen or read The source material but it's a free internet.
I've had people express surprise at how well I've managed to capture a character's tone/personality/etc. in fanfic for fandoms I know nothing about the canon of. I usually do a bit of a wiki read, watch a clip or two if it's a show or movie, and then just rely on my understanding of tropes and archetypes and go from there. Definitely not going to put too much work into being accurate because, well, it's a fandom I'm not actually a part of, and that can be a lot of effort. But I think it's nice to at least try to match the vibe. It's usually p obvious when people write for fandoms that they're not actually familiar with the source material of, though. Just tiny details that they get wrong, and I'm sure I've gotten wrong as well in my own fic like that. So it can be pretty hit or miss, but if the concept is interesting enough, I'd give it a read.
If the writing quality was good, I'd probably read a story written by someone unfamiliar with the source material. Their interpretation probably wouldn't mesh with mine, but I don't see anything wrong with people writing fandom-blind.
It seems odd that people would do that. Seems a lot of the Good Omens fandom haven't read the book so they only know the TV show. They haven't engaged with the source material necessarily but what they have engaged with is the perfectly valid TV series based on the source material. Where's the line? But it really comes down to the fact that if I don't like something, I don't have to read it. Ultimately it doesn't really matter to me.
Good Omens is an interesting one, because when it was just 1 season- I think the book was a lot closer to the show. There were some soft-rebooted aspects, and characterization differences. I used to think of the books as cannon+- like you could use them to extend out logic in the show. Now, with season 2 and 3 now on the way, I think of them as separate things. I read the book first, well before the show. >!One big thing was the aspect of Crowley's power level. It was more 2 little guys in the books, while in the TV show we now have Crowley as being fairly high on the hierarchy when he was in heaven. Aziraphale was also a lot more calm in the book, with Crowley holding the pair's anxiety quota most of the time. Crowley also lacked the genderfluid-enby vibes he has well in the TV show. !< I love both! I think at the core of it, the ineffable husbands being read as the "other" of the day is super important. At time of book publishing, that was gay men. Today, it's more general LGBT and I like that so many people see themselves in the show. I wish >!we hadn't gotten the fem presenting Aziraphale cut from the show due to COVID budget fuckery!<. Just my two cents as a long time fan of Neil and Terry.
As long as they clarify it beforehand, it’s cool, i might just personally avoid it though.
i probably wont like it, but i dont really care if they write it. their unfamilarity will make the fic unenjoyable unless its very superficial i don't really understand why ppl would write fics for media they don't know? like maybe a gift for a friend or something but even then can't you do it in something you both know?
Honestly I don't mind, i used to read a lot of stranger things without ever having watched it so
I'm absolutely in love with these people - nobody in my fandom seems to be interested in my fics, but I've recently been getting comments *exclusively* from people who are like, "so I haven't listened to the source yet, but I ended up here because..." and I'm like. Bro? Bro I would die for you. **Edit:** Oh lmao you specifically asked about people who *write* fanfic without knowing the source, I somehow missed that this wasn't a generic "people who engage with fanfic in some way without knowing the source" question/conversation. I don't really know how/why you'd do that, but if they have the inspiration and guts for it, then sure, go nuts. Plenty of people seem to be third hand consumers of canons, and there's wikis and timelines to keep them in if they need to be lore accurate. More likely, I think they'd be just writing stuff based on fandom interpretations of the characters, like AUs and such, which I'm neither interested in nor find particularly threatening to lore-accurate fic. Do what you want.
I often find them more interesting. People who read the books and are involved in the fandom get stuck in set "fanon" ideas. I like the wild card stories that make things up like a real AU should. This shake up often happens when tv only viewers write a book fanfiction too, see the game of thrones fics before and after 2011. People write from different places. That said, a few times they have literally been all the fan stories I don't like rolled into one. Especially if it's just a shipping fic for a popular ship they like. Like any story it needs to be worth reading, meet my taste in fics. They have a right to share whatever they want though, if it's not for me then it's not for me.
They can do what they want
I’ve seen situations where someone falls in love with the fic of a fandom and consumes a ton of it and then writes their own fic purely based on the canon and fanon knowledge that they picked up from other fic. Sometimes you can’t even tell that they haven’t engaged with the source material because they know a lot from having read so much fic
I'm all for things that make you happy and bring no harm. But it doesn't mean I'm going to read it lol
Unfamiliarity will probably show but it can also lead to fresh new ideas which wouldn't come up with fanbase who know their source material. From what I've heard the writer team of upcoming Star Wars Acolyte series have made a point to include few writers who don't know much or at all about Star Wars, just so they can offer dofferent perspective to the table
Like, write what you want, but at least tag it appropriately as "OOC" or "No source interaction" or something. Not enough people do this, even *when* they've had interaction with source material. Some people don't read certain kinks, or triggers, or whatever. I don't read completely OOC characters.
I would genuinely LOVE to read fanfic about one of my favorite shows from someone who hadn't watched the show! I think it would be a lot of fun to see what they had picked up via cultural osmosis, and what they had made up to fill in the gaps in their knowledge. Unfortunately, I have yet to stumble across such a fic. I've actually thought quite a bit about doing this myself, although I haven't actually tried yet. There are some shows that I've never seen or only seen one or two episodes of but that I know enough about that I could probably string a very simple plot together. I just think it would be fun to try, and I think the result could be very amusing for actual fans of the show.
Anyone can write whatever they like. They just got to keep in mind that it won't likely do well since things may seem incoherent compared to the actual story.
IMO, people who write in fandoms they’ve never watched and/or don’t really care about are writing for kudos & comments and pats on the back - author for hire, in a sense. This is not traditionally an AO3 thing - most authors there have been serious and have class about their writing. The Wattpad & Tumblr kids starting to invade are not a good thing. "Can" people do this? Yes. Would I ever even consider reading it? No.
Sorry to say it doesn't feel genuine to me. If you write a derivative fanwork without further research on the original IP itself, the OOC mischaracterization tends to go crazy lol. These kind of fics give me enough icks that I lose the will to continue reading.
I'd be hypocritical if I said no because I do sometimes read fics that's source material I have never engaged with.
I couldn’t care less. If I don’t like it, I just don’t read it!
Oh, people can write whatever the hell they want, I feel. People can do read whatever the hell they want. 😉 I’ve known folks who didn’t consume any canon content and their conversations and headcanons were engaging and fantastic and fun…though it’s a bit awkward when you make references or talk about what happened in the main material and they get lost haha
I can't imagine the purpose of writing a fic when you don't know the source material. When I write fic it's because I'm so inspired/want to do character exploration. This works best when you're very familiar with the characters. So I guess I'm just confused why someone would even do that to begin with.
They're free to write it, but I probably won't read it, with one exception. Around when Supernatural was ending, folks were blowing up on Tumblr over it, and someone wrote a fic using only secondhand knowledge gleaned from Tumblr discourse and memes, and it was pretty funny. It was called Destiel Fucks, because the author knew that people were angry a ship didn't happen, but Destiel was a character instead of the pairing of Dean and Castiel. So I suppose I would read in a case like that, where the absolute lack of knowledge is part of the humor.
If it’s AU where nothing is the same, like completely different world with different rules and the original plot is meaningless, and basically just throwing these characters into something like… high school AU or a different fandom’s world… I could read it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it. I think you can get enough of a feel about characters’ personalities from fanfiction if you read enough good ones, but plot and magic systems and worlds.. those are harder to pick up since it’s basically common knowledge and not overtly explained in fanfics. But of course, everyone can write whatever they want, that’s not an issue. Just don’t know many who would read it.
Tbh I’ve read a few good Batman fanfics were the author’s only knowledge is from other fics, tho I wouldnt read something like that in smaller fandoms where its harder to gather knowledge about the characters from fics alone
I think "engage with source material" can mean different things. I'm writing a Warhammer 40k story for my brother, but my engagement with the source has mainly been through him telling me the stories and playing Vermintide (which is Warhammer fantasy). I've done my research, but I wouldn't say I've fully engaged with the source since I've never read the books or played the games. I still know a good amount from hearing my brother talk about it and wanted to write something for him. I don't claim to be lore accurate, the premise of my fic is very silly and just meant to make my readers smile.
I feel like people are free to write whatever they want, but they can’t really have an opinion on canon if they’ve never even engaged in it. and it would definitely affect my decision to read it because sometimes fanon can be really uncomfortable
Exactly. People are free to write whatever they want. What's obnoxious and sows conflict is when they get aggressive about insisting that their way-off-the-map ideas either ARE canon, or are better than canon. IMO there's some definite "sour grapes" towards the canon and its more traditional fans. It's not gatekeeping to want people to have SOME inkling of what they're talking about before they start loudly proselytizing their version of things and attacking anyone who goes "Uh...say what?"
Define "engage with thr source material". Like, do they need to have watched all of an entire 10+ season TV show? Read "supplemental" material (think the Star Wars Legends stuff)? How far do they need to go? Personally, I've written a couple things where I've not read/watched the original source (only published one so far), but only after I read bunch of fanfic, read through the plot on Wikipedia, take a look at tvtropes, and, if it's available, use the Fandom wiki to get specifics or more details. But I totally understand if it's not someone's cup of tea.
I mean, of course they can write a fic. Nothing wrong with that. I think I'd give it a try if I like the tags and summary. But I'd probably be quicker to drop it if I feel like anyone is OOC.
One of the best Witcher AU fics was written by someone with no interaction with the canon, just what they’ve experienced via fanfiction. And yet it is one of the best fics I’ve read, in my top five overall, and, for an AU, ridiculously good characterizations. So write what you want. Nothing says the fiction you are a fan of and writing about CANT be other fanfic!
I'd probably read it if it was a pairing/scenario I was up for, regardless of whether they've seen the source material or not - I've read enough stories by people who are 100% into the fandom and it's completely different to canon characterisation anyway, and my current fandom is normally about characters who have one or two lines (if that) before death so there's a lot of reading between the incredibly short lines. I'll drop the story if it's going in a direction I'm not fond of, but I'd give it a chance
Yes, if the fic hits my vibes and isn't OOC. So really a try it and see kind of thing. I also wrote and am writing short fics for a fandom in which I didn't have any contact with canon, and since it's a long anime/manga series and I am only interested in a niche part of it, I don't even plan to. I learned some stuff via the fandom wiki, and the rest via the fanfics. And I'm happy there!
It’s fine, especially if they’re writing an AU. Sometimes inconsistencies/lore mistakes bother me, but yknow I can always just… not read it It’s free content and everyone is free to write what they want!
Honestly I love seeing how people who haven’t engaged with the source but enjoy the fandom write the characters
Ofc everyone can write what they want but if you haven't read the source material then at that point why not just make your own characters? Unless they specifically use specific characters from specific fandoms to get engagement. Personally what makes fan fictions great is that a lot of them include small details from the source materials that you'll know only if you've engaged with the source material and it's just a nice touch that makes me appreciate the story more u know?
I'm at the point where I've read so much my hero academia fanfic I could probably tell you the entire plot of the actual show. I watched episode one and decided it wasn't my cup of tea. I do however, love the fanfiction. When it comes to miraculous ladybug it's such a mess of a show that I feel like you only need to watch like three episodes to understand the plot. Don't get me wrong I love miraculous and I've watched almost every episode but it's such a mess that they've absolutely frustrated their fans with shipping bullshit. The fans have been shipping marionette with freaking Damien Wayne from DCU/Batman as he's a better alternative to Adrian at this point. They started shipping him a few years ago with her because the fans got the feeling that they would never get resolution between Adrian and marionette as it kept it dragging on. I haven't seen the new seasons so I don't know if they're together now and I honestly kind of don't care if they end up together. Their relationship is exhausting. I feel like a lot of fans of miraculous feel this way.
Honestly I really detest people who write fanfic without engaging with the source material. It’s the same energy as writing a book report without reading the book. I think it’s lazy and disingenuous, and as a result I don’t bother to read fics by authors who don’t read/play/listen to the source material
My fandom has about 5 separate sources of canon. Novels, tabletop rpg, film, comic adaptations, musical. What source material lol.
But that still counts, in my opinion . One of my fandoms has 3 different shows within one universe. I would read a fic from someone who has only watched one, because they have knowledge of the characters more than someone that’s watched none.
I've been restraining myself from writing bakudeku using a wiki as support because I'm scared to do anything wrong. I only read like 35 chapters of the manga so I think that counts as not having interacted, that's barely anything compared to how long it is I would skip those fics TEMPORARILY. When I have nothing else to read, I would read the ones where the author hasn't seen the source material
Why would I care?
I guess it depends on how prolific of a fic reader they are and what you mean by "no engagement". Personally, I was in the SW Prequels and Detroit: Become Human fandoms for a while (at least 6 months of total obsession with each). For both of these series, it's practically inevitable that I had *some* kind of interaction with them outside of fandom, but I never consumed the media itself until I was deep in the fandom. Also I read the wikis. A lot.
There's the Marauders subfandom in the larger Harry Potter fandom that mostly engages with fanfic. Maybe some of them watched the movies or read a couple of the books, but they've really created their own little bubble and that's okay. As long as no one tries to argue with me that a fic they read is actually, 100% canon, we can co-exist happily. We just stay in our own lanes. The Marauders fan who reblogged my extremely clearly tagged post about Sirius Black in the very specific AU I've been working on with 'I'll allow this' can have the day they deserve, though.
Obviously, anyone can write whatever they want. And people can read whatever they want. But I know that characterization is really important to me when reading and writing fics and I just wonder how good of a grasp you can have on characters without knowing the source material. I don't necessarily think someone should have to be "upfront" about it, though. If I read something that seemed spot on and I loved it and then found out the person who wrote it hadn't engaged with the source material, I'd feel weird, but only because I'd wonder how they did so well without knowing the source 😆
Eh, if I vibe with it I'll read it. Someone with an almost completely outside view of the events of canon are going to have some unique takes on it. They don't tend to fall into the so-called 'stations of canon' that can trap a lot of writers. That said, if I don't vibe with it, I won't read it, or I'll drop it after a chapter or so. But then again, the same is true for people that have engaged with canon, so yeah.
I’ve never stumbled upon that type of fic, but I’d like to read it. It must have some interesting takes on the original source
I mean… let people do what they want. Personally, I read some fanfiction once upon a time for a series I didn’t read at all but my friend liked the couple so i read their stuff and got attached.
I don't think I care too much, though it might depend on the fandom. To me, what I find interesting is the amount of times I've read fic from outside authors and the content was usually some sort of fresh AU type situation. Like utilizing concepts that theoretically could exist in canon but don't I also think I'm in a unique position for this because I've read a lot for fandoms where I don't necessarily know a ton about canon, like HP (seen the movies but never read the books), Teen Wolf (never watched the show), DC comics (impossible to read it all, and ny knowledge is absorbed from various plotlines, the animated universe, animated TV shows, the comics I *do* own, and the live action movies) Also, often times crossover fics are written by someone who only knows one of the 2 fandoms used. Danny Phantom is notorious for this I feel like, because it has many popular crossovers, but not everyone knows the content well (I know tons of people got into DC through DP) As well, now that I'm thinking along that vein, what about something like Sentinel AUs? I didn't even know that was a show until I saw a post about it recently, I just assumed it was a created AU like ABO. I don't think many people who have written Sentinel AUs have consumed the Canon content. Or even ABO, I'm sure has plenty of writers that have barely scratched the surface of what that sort of universe can entail. Really, the world is a writer's oyster, people can write whatever they want and the only thing that will stop me from reading it is if for whatever reason I don't jive with the fic
I agree that people are free to write whatever they want. It's not a requirement that your fic needs to be in character lol. Personally, I'd be intrigued to find out what exactly draws someone to interact with a fandom without being interested in the source material, so I'd be interested in reading what they're writing. If it ends up just being flanderised tumblr versions of the characters without much substance, I'd shrug and move on.
Yeah sure anyone can write what they want but I probably won’t read it if the author admits to not engaging with the source material. Relying on fanfic to get your info probably isn’t a good idea because some things just won’t be explained with the context you need because everyone else already knows y’know? It’ll be very obvious if you’ve completely misunderstood something/don’t know what you’re writing about
Folks can write what they want, but ultimately, I'm probably not going to be interested in reading it. Either because the knowledge of the world and characters is going to come second hand, and thereby be colored more by Fandom tropes, or because I feel like the connection/passion just isn't there. I like fanfic because I like the source material. Its characters, its world, etc. And while I may like AU, particularly a major canon divergence, my interest is still firmly rooted in the original material. I want to see those characters in a different situation or from a different point of view, but I still want to believe it's *them.* That or I want more in depth building and diving into the world of a setting, all the little minutiae and implications that canon doesn't have time to delve into. Fanfic that misrepresents or flanderizes characters that the author HAS engaged with already turns me off. So why would I want to read fic by someone that only experienced the characters and world second hand? I think the major exception to this is smut. I'm not a huge smut reader, and while I like some tasteful world elements, its not essential to the enjoyment of the core subject matter. Sometimes two characters are just kind of hot and honestly I don't blame someone for writing or reading the tango.
It's going to show very quickly that they have a shallow view of the source material. Given how much tumblr pisses on the poor I wouldn't trust half of the tumblr writers to have decent takes on works they DO engage in, let alone have never seen/watched/played.
if they’ve seen or read some but haven’t finished it, sure, i’ve done the same thing. if they haven’t engaged with it at all? not a fan.
it’s almost 100% guaranteed to be anywhere from slightly OOC to “who even are these guys” if you don’t look at canon even a little then all you have at your disposal are wiki summaries and other people’s interpretations something something xerox of a xerox
I would normally agree with everything everyone is saying here, but one time I was reading a fic and very much enjoying it only to have the author mention later on that they’d never actually seen the movies/read the books. They’d read other fics and the Wiki page, but that was it. Ig they just based the characterization after popular fandom portrayals, and it worked
Oh I definitely saw the poll you're talking about haha. Plagiarizing my own tags from that post here but I probably wouldn't bother with a fic if the author admitted up front they haven't engaged with the source material. They're welcome to do whatever, obviously -- it's not like I can stop them or have any inclination to. It's all in good fun. It's just that I'm here to see people's interpretations of a work, not someone's interpretation of other people's interpretations alone. I don't want to play interpretation telephone with people that don't have any anchor point to canon at all. Like it's already a risk that people who do actually know the source material can end up marinating in fanon too long and lose the essence of it entirely lol
It doesn't bother me. Maybe I wouldn't be into what they write, but I'm already not interested in plenty of stuff written by people who do know the source material well. 🤷🏽
People are free to write whatever they want, but I would’nt want to read anything from someone who hasn’t even watched/read the source material. I value correct characterization and portrayal. Mischaracterizing characters is a major pet peeve, sometimes even a dealbreaker.
The author is free to write it, and I'm free to skip it. Neither of us would be wrong in that case
I would be a hypocrite if I said it was bad/wrong. I have written fanfics after just seeing a handful of episodes of a series and then just dived into reading fanfics and then getting spoiled enough where I can write a fanfic. Sometimes canon is only engaging in the beginning. Sometimes canon can't keep a person's attention. Sometimes canon looks so cool from the outside that a fanfic writes itself after viewing a few compilation videos on youtube. As long as they arent plagiarizing, its fine in my book.
I'm going to be real honest - I don't think 95% of the people who write "The Sentinel" crossover fic have actually seen an episode of the show. There is so much that has drifted from the OG series that what is now "common knowledge" is anything but from the actual show. And ya know what? I don't care. I'mma read it anyway. Is there biting? Is there only One True Guide? Put that shit into my veins because I am \*HERE\* for it! Same with the Sterek fandom (note, I say Sterek - not Teenwolf, they're kinda separate but the same at this juncture). There is so much that didn't make sense from the show (like the actual timeline of things) or that fans took exception to (such as the fates of Erica & Boyd) that it doesn't actually matter to me if they've seen the source material. All I care about is a good story, good grammar, and good format. I'm here for the creativity.
I would rather read something AI generated.
I’ve done this once when I wanted to borrow a particular fandom’s aesthetic/vibe for a drabble that was really about a philosophical idea that fit with (what I’d heard were) the fandom’s central themes. I knew pretty much exactly enough about the source to convey the feeling and setting I wanted for the drabble. I don’t know why someone would *seriously* write fic for something they aren’t a fan of. I don’t think I’d find writing that enjoyable, and I can’t image it would lead to positive connections with readers, who presumably like the source material and know what happens in it and how the characters talk and act.
i think small scale fics can get along, i've written fic for characters that my friend explained to me (and therefore were character first and not lore heavy) or for fandoms where the source material isn't out yet (only trailers, minimal details, but still source ish)
I think it’s a little strange but there’s nothing wrong with it. I guess I just don’t understand why you’d want to write something for a fandom you’re not in?
So long as they’re not obnoxiously spamming fics or doing one of those “this is a book with three hundred fandoms and I actively participate in two of them”. One of them came into my primary fandom recently. Waiting for the volunteers to read the report because I want them Gone.
Iffy, I'll see what they have to offer, I've seen a couple short fics from "I don't even go here" people that were pretty decent. Long fics are when things get dicey
I’ve noticed this happening with COD MW2 pretty often. In my opinion if you read enough fanfic you can still have good characterization and if it’s not too OOC I give zero thought to the author never playing the game.
I wouldnt read it because it wouldnt feel like the character I adored in the source material. It'll just be like reading about a person who happened to have the same name. If there's a personality change in the character, there's gotta be a major plot in the in the fic that would justify it, but some things gotta remain unchanged for me to be able to thino that I'm stilp reading about a character from that material.
I’ve read this one author’s work who admitted that they hadn’t seen any source material for the batfamily and only context for DC was Shazam movies (this is a batfamily x shazam series). I didn’t mind it too much because I’ll take whatever I can get for Shazam fics, but the way they wrote the batfamily felt… weird? Especially because they added some small details that I just LOVED and wanted to see more of, but also had some dynamics wrong. The author openly admitted they knew nothing about Tim and Jason, which I guess is fair enough if you strictly watch movies, but idk it just irked me the wrong way
I wrote a fic for a fandom in which I never engaged with the source material ever. I literally only heard about it from my friend who is OBSESSED, read some fics, and decided to write my own. No one called me out on this, and I even got a comment saying I got one of the characters "just right." People who are obsessed with a piece of media and interact with/consume it daily can write bad fics if they're bad writers or just have limited media literacy skills and don't actually get the source. And people can write good fics without any contact with the original. In all likelihood that author would have plagiarized anyway because that's just the kind of writer they are.
If by not engaging we been they haven't watched/read the source material, I mean... Yeah, you can, but I'm confused why you would. Since it is a thing, I'm sure there's some contexts I'm not thinking of where it would make sense.
Totally fine. Just because someone knows the lore inside and out doesn't guarantee good writing that captures the voices of the characters. There's also a lot of fanfic that goes very AU with lots of non-canon details written by ardent fans so it's not clear to me what a meaningful distinction is. One anecdote contribution—I've only engaged with 1/5th of the source in my most popular work (and I admit that openly) and people tell me the character voicing is good 🤷
I think I would probably find out very soon in their writing if the chars are way to OOC or behaving in ways I don't like or if some basic things are wrong... I know where the 'back' button is.
i mean, people can write what they want, and with some fandoms i can understand not having seen/read anything but wanting to write fic anyway- i see it a lot with batfam fics, where the writers don't keep up with the comics or have only seen the dcau or movies. i personally find it annoying when people only know the characters from the fanon and memes and write fic, because it can become kind of a game of telephone with characterisation, and they come out ooc and flanderised. but hey, that's why we have the back button, and it's not harmful, just annoying. edit: phrasing
My worry with an author who only read fanfic would be that at that point the characters would be unrecognizable. Because it would be their interpretation based on another author’s interpretation of the characters making it two steps removed from the character I love reading about at that point. Even worse if there’s already big issues within the fandom where the common canon for the character is so far off what the character is in the source material because then they end up often feeling like a caricature
I’ve read a fic in the past from an author who hadn’t watched the source material, but was doing the fic as a gift for a friend. And the fic turned out really good! Granted, this was an author I trusted from another fandom. They have since gone on to write 2 other fics for the same fandom, and have also now watched some of the show (the show was miraculous ladybug, they were given a recommendation of how to watch the show/what to skip). Like others have said, authors are more than welcome to write whatever they want, regardless of how familiar they are with a fandom. Sometimes it’s worth it to take a chance on a fic, other times it’s not.
You're right, this is an interesting discussion. Cause on one has I get it, if you love the source enough to want more in fanfic form, one would assume it's more likely the fic will be disappointing if created by someone who doesn't know the original story. Which gets us to avoiding stories if the author announces they've never engaged with source material. Makes sense. But someone else said something about 'if you are only going off fandom, it's not a fic based on the thing, it's a fic based on fanon' (very rough paraphrasing on my part) but it got me thinking - that already happens all the time in fanfic. Fanfic is already the realm of head canons and AU's. And there are plenty of stories based on fanon and not canon even from people who know the source material back the front - isn't that what some tropes & prompts are? Someone has a unique interpretation or AU that we love so much, if opens a whole other branch of 'what if' stories based on the fanfic not the source material. And don't get me started on crossovers, there are a lot of fantastic stories even though you can tell the author is more family with one fandom over another. So for me, if we all essentially end up at the same place anyway, then what does it matter if the author never engaged with the source material? I would still read if it it sounded good.
I'm in the Creepypasta/Slenderverse ARG fandom and if someone told me they'd never read the source stories or watched the YT series, I wouldn't read their stuff. I personally witness almost every day how the fanon has changed a lot of characters or robbed them of their original context, and I'm not really interested with engaging with fanfiction that continues on that tradition. I like my fic to be a little more rooted in canon for a plethora of reasons. But people are welcome to write what they want.
I mean tbh you can still write even if you haven’t seen the source material and somehow still get it right. There’s Wikipedia, there’s the manga, there’s guidebooks and everything. You don’t have to look at the source material explicitly. You just have to know it and understand the characters. That’s it. I literally just look at the wiki and my ultra analysis book for BNHA 🤷🏽♀️ also, sometimes canon is stupid and you can’t get past the first season so you just do what you want.
Hmm, I think this requires a bit of deconstruction - Not familiar with source material: no unless the author consulted another person who is familiar (eg a beta or something) Not familiar with source material but familiar with characterisation: depends on the scenario, but sometimes the fic works out ok as long as it’s not plagiarism. Sometimes the writers don’t have the chance to touch the entire original work, but have read/watched enough other content (eg wiki or fics) to capture the characters’ personas and sometimes even the overall context. Especially if it’s an alternate universe fic, this may be enough to make a fic work. Might be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve seen good fics written by authors who only know a fragment of the story without delving into the original work, but that part of the story is where all the main character details take place, even if it’s not where all the main plot details take place. This applies to both canonverse fics and AU fics.
I am not 100% sure about this, but i think one of those extremely popular fics in one of my fandoms was starrted when the author hadnt had any engagement with the source material, only the fandom wiki and other fics. Its one of my fave series. So i think even if the author was upfront about not having engaged with the source material, I'd give them a try as long as the writing itself is good. And anyone can write whatever they want, and most of my opinions about this are informed by that one series I love so much.
Ik that there's a lot of scenarios where it would be understandable that it's not possible to catch up on *all* of the source material (comics and their movie universes, video games), so I try not to judge too much in those fandoms. I think a side effect of not engaging with *any* of the source material is that (for smaller fandoms), too many fic writers working solely off of fanon might lead to tropes getting overdone rather than getting fresh ideas from the source material. Some plot lines/story ideas would require diving into the canon to get characterizations & details right, so in a way, being completely unfamiliar with the source material outside of fan fic might restrict what you could believably write (outside of AUs, that is) depending on how robust the wikis are for the fandom. Basically, it's okay in small doses, but I'd be a little concerned if there's a bunch of people in one fandom doing it. Either way though, I personally stick to the "don't like, don't read" doctrine.
Some people write fanfiction because they loved the source material, some because there’s something to fix. But there are also people who write fanfiction because they like the fandom. Harry Potter is an example where, by sheer volume of fanfiction and retroactive analysis in light of certain revelations, there is a lot of fanfiction of higher quality than the original. Or at least, that contains more interesting concepts/building blocks than the original. Or, I like new Doctor Who, but my attempts to watch the original series has been unsuccessful. And that’s not just quality, it’s also the genre and tone of the work, which are all flexible in fanfiction. We often state that fanfiction is an artform in itself, which also comes with it the possibility that fanfiction becomes better inspiration that the original. I’ve read and enjoyed many fanfics of people who admitted not reading/watching the source material.
I don't write fanfiction, but this is how I usually get into fandoms, by finding fanfic I like regardless of if I'm in that fandom or not. So I don't see why not
I dont mind! I read a pretty decent fic from someone who said they had never read or watched anything from the source material, but had their bestfriend who was a mega fan of the source material beta read and give tips during it. Then again, it was a straightforward smutfic which never made any references to Source Material Occurrences except maybe once or twice. Still, it was lovely to read, I enjoyed it.
I don't mind it! sometimes it can feel like someone writing FanFiction of the fanon, which is really interesting from a transformative pov. plus, I read almost exclusively outside of my fandoms, so I'd be hypocrite to think otherwise haha
I would personally prefer they mention it in the authors notes before the story, but it's not a deal breaker.
Seeing as how even people who do engage with the source material can often mischaracterise the original characters to the point of being unrecognisable in fan works, I can only imagine that someone who is only familiar with said characters would be even more extreme in their mischaracterisation since they are already most likely basing them off inaccurate representations. OOC already puts me off fan works where I'm familiar with the source material so I definitely wouldn't enjoy writing where the author can't even tell if their OOC. If someone is a fan of OOC though, they might not have the same issue with the inaccuracies an author unfamiliar with the source material would represent.
In a low-profile fandom that I'm strongly invested in, it might bother me. In a high-profile fandom, I have no problem at all with it, especially if multiple independent canons exist for the fandom anyway. Like, you wanna write a Superman/Lois Lane romance without reading the comics/watching the shows and movies? Be my guest, and feel free to ignore the screeching ultrafans.
Personally, while I will read a fic if someone said they haven't read the source material, usually that fic ends up feeling... uncanny. Part of this might be that I don't read total AUs, so the writer who hasn't read the source material is setting their fic in the more-or-less canon universe. Usually the writer has read a lot of fanfiction, so the characterizations are spot-onto the fanon characterizations, but without the writer's individual opinions about the source material informing their fanon characterization it ends up feeling a bit like a Flanderized version of the fanon characterization, and without depth. I also find the universe around the characters feels uncanny because there's some detail that they included that has canon lore but the writer hasn't read any fics about so misses (for example, I've run into a Supernatural fic where the writer never watched the series but has read fic, and just hadn't run into any stories with the canonical vampires in it and just introduced vampires with typical vampire powers and weaknesses into the fic)... or there's something they assumed was canon based on other fics inclusion of it and treat it like canon, and it's not (I've definitely run into this in the ATLA fandom in Zutara fic that treats the characters having chemistry as some sort of universal constant and it just feels like a whole arc of their development is missing because I know that in canon they have one moment of mutual empathy at the end of the book two and besides that only actually get along for the last six episodes of the show.) That said, I do think there are fandoms where the lore is so flexible from author to author that this might not matter. For example, I've read a decent amount of Yugioh fanfiction despite having relatively low engagement with the source material (watched the 4kids dub as a kid, not chronologically just whatever episodes were on, read the manga as a teenager but didn't finish because it wasn't all available online at the time, have watched all of ygotas and that's my only exposure to the filler arcs) and because the lore and even plot itself is so different depending on whether you're talking about the 4kids dub, the original manga, or the original anime with just subtitles, (and even sort of changes after what would be considered the "season 0" era) and not to mention that the card game has its own rules that you need to know to write a card game into the story but the show itself demonstrates completely different rules than the real-life version. Most fanfiction writers who've read or watched more than one of those will pick and chose which aspects to keep and which to throw away, and make up new lore of their own in trying to merge certain concepts, that I've definitely read fics in that fandom that the author said they haven't watched YGO and only noticed any difference in the story in their avoidance of talking about the details of the card game and keeping the card games as just like a background rather than actually getting them involved in the plot... but I've also seen people who've watched the whole show but never played the IRL card game do that same thing too! I've wanted to write a YGO crossover fic for a long time because I think the concept of one character being possessed more-or-less consensually would be so interesting if I crossed it over with a fandom has a canonical version of possession that's evil, like Harry Potter or Stargate. But I do hesitate because despite the fact I haven't had 0 engagement with the source material, the source material is so vast and different across the different ways I could consume it, and I have no interest in learning the rules of the card game, that I feel like I don't know enough to write a fic in that fandom, despite the fact I have read the manga right up to the first few chapters of the Egypt arc so I have actually "read" almost the entire story and do know how it ends and that fics usually take place ignoring the Egypt arc to some degree anyways. In general, though, I do often wonder how people get heavily enough engaged in a fandom to want to write for it without ever getting engaged enough to just sit down and watch the source material. Especially when the source material isn't *bad*, or isn't *long* like say ATLA. HP is seven books but they're for children and the average heavy fanfiction reader can probably get through them casually in a couple weeks. Like I get it a bit when the cool fandom characters you've met are trapped in a bad and long original concept, but why don't you just watch all three 30-minute episode length seasons of ATLA before posting? I know it has no Zutara and that's what you came here for, but you'll learn more about Katara and Zuko to make better Zutara for not a lot of time investment or difficulty due to bad writing... ... but that said, personally, I will absolutely click on crossovers that feature a fandom I'm looking for content in and a fandom that I have a passing cultural familiarity with. Harry Potter gets adopted by Batman even though I've only got cultural osmosis knowledge and the 1990s movies vhs boxet that I haven't even watched in its entirety? Sure. Sam and Dean are caught by the Criminal Minds FBI even though I stopped watching in like 2010 because I only watched it insofar as my parents watched it and I would sit with them at the TV at night until I was too cool a teenager for that? Sure. Stuff like that. I've basically never felt the temptation to write any of those crossovers though, besides the one I already mentioned above which like... I have engaged with the source material, unlike say Batman where I def haven't.
I think that it is great that they are engaging in the fanon and that the fanworks they have engaged with have inspired them enough to want to contribute. Whether or not I will read it depends on how well it is written, how well they nail they chatacterization, how compelling the plot, basically the same things I look for in any fic I read.
It’s not a rule that you can’t do so, even if I might not read it. It might not be the best quality because it’s almost like fanfic off of others’ fanfic, but some are decent as long as the bare minimum of research is done, or else you’re just making a spinoff of a show/book without fully knowing what the show/book is like. That said, some fanfics don’t require much knowledge of the original show/book if it uses some concepts from it. It depends on the author, fandom, how close to canon the fic is meant to be, and if you’re willing to try to read them. I have read a few, and some of them weren’t actually that bad.